撰写On March 11th, the press center of the Fifth Session of the 12th National People’s Congress held a press conference, inviting Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister, and Zhang Feng, Chief Engineer and Spokesman, to give a talk on "Promoting the implementation of ‘ Made in China 2025’ " Answer questions from Chinese and foreign journalists.
China Daily and China Daily reporter:"Made in China 2025" has been promulgated and implemented for nearly two years, and positive progress has been made. How will we accelerate the implementation in the next step? At the same time, we have noticed that the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China recently released the report "Made in China 2025: Market Power in Industrial Policy Game", arguing that the relevant policies put forward run counter to the market-oriented reform. Excuse me, what’s your comment on this?
Miao Wei:Since the publication and implementation of Made in China 2025, under the unified leadership of the State Council and the National Leading Group for Building a Powerful Manufacturing Country, we have strengthened the top-level design and the linkage between the central and local governments, especially in giving full play to the roles of various industries, associations and enterprises, and achieved initial results. We have done a lot of work in realizing the differentiated development pattern according to the idea of giving full play to the main role of enterprises and the leading role of major projects, and according to the principle of guiding and protecting the enthusiasm of localities and enterprises, and have also achieved initial results. We have distributed the written materials to you, and achieved six results, and introduced the next step. I won’t introduce them here.
I will focus on your second question. We have paid attention to the report recently released by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, which is very long, with 58 pages in Chinese. After reading this report, the general feeling is that some opinions and suggestions put forward in the report are helpful to do a good job in the future. But realistically speaking, there are also some opinions and some statements in this report that have misunderstood Made in China 2025. Here, I want to focus on this issue.
First, during the formulation of the Made in China 2025 document and its implementation in the past two years, we have always adhered to the principle of market leading and government guiding. As we all know, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in the Communist Party of China (CPC) decided to "make the market play a decisive role in resource allocation and better play the role of the government". In the future, we will continue to adhere to the market-oriented reform direction, which is also the starting point for us to formulate "Made in China 2025" and related policies.
As we all know, while promoting economic development and giving play to the decisive role of the market, we also need to give better play to the guiding role of the government. This is actually an internationally accepted practice. In order to develop domestic manufacturing industry, some countries and regions have formulated documents like "Made in China 2025" at different times. In the past two years, the European Union has an industrial revival strategy, the United States has a national strategic plan for advanced manufacturing, and Germany has "Industry 4.0".
It should be noted that at present, developed countries still strictly restrict the export of some technologies and products to China, and the trend of "anti-globalization" and the tendency of trade protectionism have also risen. The Government of China has always opposed this practice. As a developing country, China has a huge demand for advanced technology and products. The fundamental purpose of making and implementing "Made in China 2025" is also to accelerate the industrial transformation and upgrading of China, so as to meet the domestic market’s demand for all kinds of equipment and industrial products. Some equipment and some products are still embargoed by the west, and we are in urgent need in the market. If we don’t do it, how can we say that we can meet the economic development, the people’s livelihood needs and the national defense security of our country?
Second, the report raises some questions about the development indicators of "Made in China 2025", such as setting the market share of domestic brands. I want to make it clear that we did not deliberately pursue this indicator in the process of formulating the document. Of course, after the publication of the document, the Committee of Experts on Strategic Consulting issued a Green Paper, and most of the indicators cited in the report of the European Chamber of Commerce in China were published in the Green Paper. However, when the Green Paper was released, they already stated that this indicator was predictive, not mandatory, and had no binding effect, let alone an act of the government.
Thirdly, "Made in China 2025" and its related policies and measures are applicable to all enterprises in China, including domestic enterprises and foreign enterprises alike. For example, taking new energy vehicles as an example, our access conditions require enterprises to master a full set of development and manufacturing technologies for new energy vehicles. This requirement is not only for foreign-funded enterprises, nor is it mandatory for foreign-funded enterprises to transfer technology to China. The original intention of our policy is to prevent some enterprises from taking advantage of government subsidies to buy assembly parts to assemble a batch of cars and make a fortune and leave. In this case, it is not only harmful to the interests of users, but also harmful to enterprises with intellectual property rights. Therefore, when we formulate this policy, we don’t mean to restrict foreign-funded enterprises. We treat both domestic and foreign-funded enterprises equally. Moreover, technology transfer and mastering this technology means setting up R&D centers in China as well as in overseas parent companies. As long as we have this technology, we don’t mean that we must set up R&D centers in China and transfer this technology to China by force.
As you all know, the government has no such coercive power over state-owned enterprises, let alone compulsory technology transfer to foreign-funded enterprises. Moreover, if this transfer is not good, I can’t force it, and there is no coercion. Therefore, this issue is clarified here.
I would like to reiterate that foreign-funded enterprises have made positive contributions to China’s economic development and shared the fruits of China’s economic development in the process of China’s reform and opening up for more than 30 years. In the process of promoting "Made in China 2025", we have always stressed the need to strengthen international bilateral and multilateral exchanges and cooperation. For example, we signed a cooperation agreement with Germany, and established a cooperation mechanism for "Made in China 2025" and "Industry 4.0" in Germany, and achieved positive results in the construction of intelligent manufacturing standard system and some sub-sectors. Therefore, I hope that the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China will correctly understand and look at this issue, and take this opportunity to clarify our views and the contents of misunderstanding. Thank you.