MULTINATIONAL companies (MNCs) in China are intensifying their engagement with their local partners, which underscores a much broader trend — one being accelerated by the country’s push for new industrialization.
Ralf Brandstätter, Volkswagen Group board member for China, highlighted the strong and deepening cooperation between Volkswagen and its Chinese partners.
“Together with them, we are now making strong progress,” he said. He noted that partners such as Xpeng, Horizon Robotics and Gotion are fully committed to working with Volkswagen.
Brandstätter stressed the importance of collaboration, stating that Volkswagen is not doing this alone. “We are doing it together with the Chinese ecosystem,” he explained. “We are only one part of it, and the main part is Chinese.”
China’s new industrialization is not only reshaping its domestic industrial landscape but also offering foreign companies a wealth of new opportunities where global expertise and local innovation are converging. This trend is already creating tangible outcomes, as Chinese companies rapidly advance their intelligent capabilities across critical sectors.
Midea subsidiary Wan Dong Medical recently unveiled the magnetic resonance (MR) agent and digital radiography (DR) agent intelligent products, along with several new imaging devices. With a full-chain smart solution, Wan Dong is pushing China’s domestic medical imaging equipment into the next era of intelligence, the company told the Global Times.
The MR agent uses data from nearly 50,000 healthy individuals across 34 provinces to create a dedicated Chinese brain recognition model. The DR agent automates the entire process from positioning and parameter setting to diagnosis and report generation.
At this year’s Hannover Messe in April, Schneider Electric showcased energy-tech convergence to help industrial organizations turn operational, energy and workforce challenges into competitive advantages.
“China is an innovation driver in industrial automation, digital transformation, sustainable development and high-quality growth. China’s continued push for high-quality development and openness strengthens our confidence to deepen localization, expand innovation and contribute to China’s industrial modernization while scaling these innovations globally,” Schneider Electric Chief Technology Officer Andreas Groeger told the Global Times.
China has a complete industrial system and a large market, and its innovation-driven industries are undergoing continuous upgrading. With numerous application scenarios, this combination provides foreign enterprises with more opportunities for development in China and greater market confidence, Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of the Forum 50 for Digital-Real Economies Integration, told the Global Times.
Amid rising international uncertainty, China provides a stable operating environment for multinational corporations through institutional opening up, said Liu Minghua, CEO of Deloitte China.
Liu said the full liberalization of foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector and the deepening of the services-sector opening up during the 15th Five-Year Plan period have continuously strengthened multinational corporations’ confidence in long-term investment in China.
An innovation ecosystem powered by high-end talent, a complete industrial chain, rich application scenarios and efficient institutional synergy is rapidly taking shape, deeply integrating into the global research and development (R&D) network.
More and more multinational corporations are no longer limiting themselves to viewing China as a production base or sales market, but are elevating it into a global strategic R&D center and industrial chain collaboration hub, he added.
Julian Jenkins, director of sales and brand at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, said in an earlier interview with the Global Times that China’s 15th Five-Year Plan places strong emphasis on a higher level of opening up, and “this opportunity is one where we very much support open trade and engagement, as we do around the world.”
“For us, China is an important market, and we are very excited about the potential, and that is why we continue to invest,” Jenkins said.
“You know, we are in China not only to serve the market,” Daloz said. “We are in China also because innovation is now coming from China. The electric vehicle is a good example. If you are not part of these ecosystems, in the end, you will not stay competitive in the long term.”