In 1977, China created the most complete industrial world on the planet.

The road to the forefront of manufacturing a powerful country is always the only way to go.

Text | Huashang Taolue Huaxin

Many people may not realize that while we often regard “moving from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power” as our goal, in terms of comprehensive strength, China is already one of the strongest manufacturing countries on the planet.

China’s basic software and industrial software, high-end instrumentation, aerospace engines, high-end lithography machines and other high-end industries are still shortcomings. But if we change the ruler, who can organize all production from steel, chemicals, textiles to automobiles, ships, high-speed rail, nuclear power, communication equipment, industrial robots and aerospace in their own land, and organize it in the largest, most comprehensive, fastest and most economical way? There is only one answer.

Numbers are hard. In 2025, the added value of China’s manufacturing industry will be 34.7 trillion yuan, ranking first in the world for 16 consecutive years; World Bank statistics show that during the “14th Five-Year Plan” five years, the added value of China’s manufacturing industry accounted for 28% of the world’s total. According to official standards, China has 41 major industrial categories, 207 medium categories, and 666 small categories. It is the only country that covers all industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification. Among the 504 major industrial products in the world, the output of most of China’s products ranks first in the world.

What makes China “strongest” is not the strongest at every point, but the strength of the system. And it is precisely this strength that gives China’s industry unparalleled capabilities:This is the most complete industrial world on earth. Almost any industrial idea can be turned into a product on this land with the shortest cycle, the most complete supporting facilities and the lowest cost.

【01 From the prefix “foreign” to the whole chain】

Matches are called matches, kerosene is called foreign oil, iron nails are called foreign nails, woven fabrics are called foreign cloth, soap is called foreign alkali, and cement is called cement… In the past, China either could not make even ordinary daily necessities, or could not make them well, or could not make them enough.

The industrial wealth in 1949 was not just as thin as paper, but so thin that it could be written on a piece of paper: the annual steel production was 158,000 tons, which was less than 300 grams per capita based on the population of 540 million at the time; the power generation was 4.3 billion kilowatt-hours, crude oil was 120,000 tons, and raw coal was about 32 million tons. Modern industrial categories are incomplete. The only factories are crowded in a few coastal cities and the Northeast, and even the machines themselves have to be imported.

In 1954, Chairman Mao detailed this wealth in a speech: tables, chairs, benches, tea bowls and teapots can be made, flour can be ground, and paper can be made.But a car, an airplane, a tank, or a tractor cannot be built.

What is worse than the lack of products is the lack of a system for manufacturing products. There is a shortage of steel and steel-making equipment; there is a shortage of cars and engines, bearings, gearboxes and complete sets of machine tools; there is a shortage of electricity and the ability to make generators and transformers. A machine can be exchanged for foreign exchange, but an industrial system cannot find a seller.

It is on this poor basis that China’s industry began its own counterattack story.

On July 15, 1953, on a wasteland in the southwest suburbs of Changchun, the foundation stone of the First Automobile Manufacturing Plant was laid. Three years later, on July 13, 1956, the first batch of 12 Jiefang brand CA10 trucks rolled off the assembly line, ending China’s history of being unable to mass-produce cars. The next day, workers drove these new trucks into the city to announce the good news, and the streets were crowded with citizens who saw domestic cars for the first time. The technology of this 4-ton truck originated from the Soviet Union, but it has thousands of parts.For the first time, the capabilities of steel, casting and forging, machine tools, bearings, tires, electrical, and glass have been combined into a system.

A car is never just a car. What is exposed above the ground is a car, and what is buried underground is the intricate root system of materials, energy, machinery, electronics and chemicals. If a country can manufacture cars, it shows that these roots have taken root.

70 years later, the same car looks completely different. In 2025, China’s automobile production was 34.531 million units, ranking first in the world for 17 consecutive years; of which, new energy vehicle production was 16.626 million units, ranking first in the world for 11 consecutive years; China’s automobile exports throughout the year were 7.098 million units, ranking first in the world for three consecutive years.

What’s more worth mentioning is the chain behind a car.

Today in the Yangtze River Delta, most of the power batteries, drive motors, electronic control systems, integrated die-cast bodies, smart cockpit screens, lidar, and even seat fabrics and safety glass required by a new energy vehicle manufacturer can be found within a few hours’ drive, and often there is more than one supplier to choose from. In the Pearl River Delta, it often only takes a few weeks for a new product to go from drawing, proofing, mold opening to mass production. Back then, a Jiefang truck was the result of three years of hard work by a factory; today, a new energy vehicle is the blink of an eye of an entire industrial network.

This net covers much more than just cars. Shanghai not only assembles large domestic aircraft, but also builds large LNG carriers; Fuji builds power batteries, Sichuan builds heavy-duty gas turbines, Wuhan pulls fiber optics, and Shenzhen designs drones. Merchants in Yiwu can assemble molds, packaging and accessories for a new idea in one day.China not only builds giant ships with hundreds of thousands of tons, but also makes buttons that cost a few cents each; it builds nuclear power plants and also makes rice cookers.

What’s really rare is not that “everything can be done”, but that these categories mesh with each other.

China wins by its industrial density, not by being a single champion; it wins by being able to stably produce hundreds of thousands or millions of complex products, and by constantly changing designs, reducing costs, and improving performance during production.

Making one thing is a matter of skill, but making millions, tens of millions or even more of them, and making them all the same, is called industry.

What makes this network airtight are those unnamed “capillaries”. By 2025, China has cultivated more than 140,000 specialized small and medium-sized enterprises. What they produce is often a special bolt, a sealing material, and a control program, but they are an inseparable part of the entire industrial chain; more than 35,000 basic-level, more than 8,200 advanced-level, and more than 500 excellence-level smart factories have been built across the country. The industrial Internet covers all 41 major industrial categories.

As the network becomes denser and denser, China begins to export “machines for making things” to the world. In 2025, China’s exports of special equipment and high-end machine tools will increase by 20.6% and 21.5% respectively; exports of industrial robots will increase by 48.7%, and for the first time, exports will exceed imports, making China a net exporter of industrial robots.

In the past seventy-seven years, the Chinese have removed the word “foreign” from the names of daily necessities one by one, and introduced “Made in China” to the entire world.

【02 Why China】

The industrial system is built up layer by layer. Looking at 1977 separately, China’s industry has completed at least three types of accumulation.

The first type of accumulation is the system. FAW is one of the 156 key projects in the “First Five-Year Plan”. This batch of projects focused the extremely limited resources at the time on energy, steel, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, machinery, automobiles, aviation and defense industries: Changchun had FAW, Luoyang had a tractor factory, Wuhan had a steel base, and Lanzhou had a refining and chemical industry. The third-line construction that began in the mid-1960s moved a large number of factories, scientific research institutes and skilled workers to the southwest and northwest hinterlands. Panzhihua Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. and Second Automobile Works were both products of that era.

That period of history left behind two things for the future: first, a complete industrial skeleton, and second, millions of workers and engineers who knew how to operate machine tools, make steel, and design. Without this skeleton, the capital, orders and technology that later poured in would not have a place to stay.

The second type of accumulation is market and openness. After the reform and opening up, FAW took a path that many state-owned enterprises had taken: in 1991, it established FAW-Volkswagen as a joint venture with German Volkswagen. The joint venture brings not only models, but also a set of quality systems, production management and parts certification standards. For the first time, Chinese supporting companies have been “examined” according to international standards.

Another line unfolds in the countryside. In 1969, in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang, Lu Guanqiu led six farmers and pooled 4,000 yuan to set up the Ningwei Commune Agricultural Machinery Repair Factory to repair farm tools and forge iron tools. Later, he concentrated all his efforts on an inconspicuous part: the car universal joint. In 1984, the universal joints of this small rural factory entered the U.S. market and became a model for Chinese township enterprises to go global. Behind Lu Guanqiu are thousands of factories in southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Fujian that started with a sewing machine and a punch press. By the early 1990s, township and village enterprises accounted for about one-third of the country’s industrial output. Later, they became the main force of private enterprises.The country has built the framework, and the market has allowed the muscles to grow vigorously. In 2025, private enterprises’ import and export volume will be 26.04 trillion yuan, accounting for 57.3% of China’s total foreign trade value.

Joining the WTO in 2001 was an accelerator of this accumulation.

That year, China’s total foreign trade import and export volume was approximately US$510 billion, and its automobile production was just over 2 million units. In the early days, Chinese factories made hard money: profits were thin, energy consumption was high, there was no brand, and design and channels were in the hands of multinational companies. But global orders are also a strict school. They require consistent specifications, on-time delivery, traceable quality, and require thousands of suppliers to adhere to the same set of standards. Chinese companies have learned quality management, lean production, supply chain collaboration and international certification here. According to WTO data, China’s share of global goods exports has increased from 4.3% in 2001 to 14.4% in 2025, which is 1.7 times that of the United States and 1.5 times that of Germany and Japan combined, ranking first in the world. In 2009, China’s automobile production and sales surpassed that of the United States, and it has never been ranked first in the world since then.

Scale itself is a technology. Every time a production line runs one million more units, the yield, process, and supplier maturity will move forward. Many seemingly “sudden” leads made in China later were actually the result of this massive repetitive training, and were inevitable qualitative changes after the rapid accumulation of quantitative changes.

The third type of accumulation is technology and talents. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, this level of accumulation has accelerated significantly. In 2012, the intensity of China’s R&D funding investment was 1.91%; in 2025, the total social R&D funding reached 3.9262 billion yuan, with the intensity rising to 2.8%, exceeding the average level of OECD countries for the first time, and the proportion of basic research funding reaching 7.08%, a record high. The investment eventually turned into the industrial structure: from 2012 to 2025, the added value of high-tech manufacturing in the proportion of industries above designated size rose from 9.4% to 17.1%, and the equipment manufacturing industry rose from about 28% to 36.8%.

New energy vehicles best illustrate this change. In the past, what Chinese car companies had to solve was to build a car close to international standards; today, they have to tackle battery chemistry, motor electronic control, thermal management, smart cockpit, assisted driving and vehicle software at the same time. A new solution is born in the laboratory, verified in the factory, generates data in the hands of hundreds of thousands of users, and then flows back to the next generation of products. Engineers, production lines, suppliers, and the world’s largest single market are all forced into the same iteration cycle.China may not always be the first to come up with a concept, but it is often the first to turn concepts into products and then turn new products into mass commodities as quickly as possible.

FAW’s story takes another turn here. Hongqi, which was born in 1958, once only appeared in state banquets and concierge fleets for a long time. At one time, the annual sales in the market were only a few thousand units. In 2018, Hongqi released a new brand strategy, repositioned and increased research and development. Sales in 2025 will exceed 460,000 vehicles, which has been growth for 8 consecutive years, with cumulative users exceeding 2 million. From Jiefang trucks to joint venture cars to independent high-end brands, it is the epitome of China’s industrial development and progress.

What supports all of this is an unprecedented team of engineers. China ranks among the top in the world in terms of the number of science and engineering graduates it produces every year. The “engineer dividend” has taken over the baton of the “demographic dividend”: while factories in many countries are still worried about not being able to recruit skilled technicians, China’s production lines can be rerouted in a very short time and new technologies can be put into mass production.

The system has given China its industrial bones, the market has given it flesh and blood, and technology is giving it brains. None of these three things can be saved by one generation. Once it is saved, the benefits and achievements will not only benefit one or two generations.

【03 Chinese Industry in the World】

In July 2026, at Shanghai Nangang Terminal, the Maltese-made 10,000-car-class car roll-off ship, the Maltese-owned “Grovis Nova”, loaded 7,738 Shanghai-made Teslas and sailed to the Port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, setting a record for the shipment of commercial vehicles in a single voyage at a domestic port.

The Shanghai factory of this American company is the first wholly foreign-owned vehicle company after China lifted restrictions on foreign equity ownership in automobiles. It started construction in early 2019 and delivered the first batch of domestically produced Model 3s at the end of that year. It took about 10 months from piling to delivery. At the beginning of production, the localization rate of parts was only about 30%, but now it exceeds 95%; more than 400 Chinese first-tier suppliers have been signed, and more than 60 of them have entered Tesla’s global supply chain.

In six and a half years, this factory has produced more than 4.5 million electric vehicles, accounting for more than 45% of Tesla’s total global production; nearly 468,000 vehicles were delivered in the first half of 2026, accounting for more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries. The large six-seater SUV Model Y L was designed and developed by a Chinese team and then launched into the global market.

On the surface, this is a factory built by an American company in China; if you look deeper, it is another true form of Chinese industry, and even the composition of interests: American brands and software, Chinese factories, engineers and suppliers, global equipment, materials and capital, and finally sold to the world.

On March 26 this year, in Donghai Island, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, Germany’s BASF announced that its integrated base was fully operational. With a total investment of approximately 8.7 billion euros, this base is BASF’s largest single investment in history, the largest wholly-owned individual project by a German company in China, and the first wholly foreign-owned project in China’s heavy chemical industry.

In a factory area of about 4 square kilometers, there are 19 sets of equipment and 33 production lines ranging from basic chemicals to intermediates and special materials, with more than 70 products. The global scale is second only to Ludwigshafen, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium. In order to get it implemented on time, Zhanjiang shortened the review time of the chemical project to 26 days.

BASF’s rationale is straightforward: produce close to customers. China is the world’s largest chemical market. About 14% of BASF’s sales will come from China in 2025, and the company expects this proportion to rise to 15% to 20%.

The same logic applies to the sky. On September 16 this year, Airbus Tianjin’s second A320 series final assembly line delivered its first aircraft. Airbus has 10 A320 series final assembly lines around the world, including 4 in Hamburg, Germany, 2 in Toulouse, France, 2 in Mobile, the United States, and 2 in Tianjin, China. About 200 Chinese suppliers participate in the production of Airbus civil aircraft. From brackets and seats to fuselage sections, wings, and doors, all Airbus civil aircraft models have Chinese-made parts; in 2025, the total value of Airbus’ industrial cooperation in China will exceed US$1.4 billion. While China is building its own C919, it is also responsible for one-fifth of the A320 series final assembly lines in the European aircraft global system.

In 2025, China will establish 70,392 new foreign-invested enterprises, an increase of 19.1%; the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises will reach 13.27 trillion yuan, which has been increased for 7 consecutive quarters. so,China is not only the “world’s factory” but also the “world’s factory”. It is where global companies manufacture, global capital flows here, and countries around the world create and share in this industrial world. Made in China is made in China and also made in the world.Made-in-China exports are also the global orders obtained by global companies through manufacturing in China, as well as the products, revenue and profits sold to the world.

The world’s factory also has another meaning: the world’s buyer.While the world is watching China’s exports continue to hit new highs, China’s imports are also growing rapidly, hitting record highs.From January to August this year, China’s exports of goods trade were 20.17 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.6%; imports were 14.61 trillion yuan, an increase of 22%. The growth of imports has been much higher than the growth of exports.

Some people continue to promote the so-called “supply chain going to China”, which eventually turns into “supply chain going to China” time and time again. The fact behind it is,Rather than saying that China is the world’s factory, it is better to say that China’s manufacturing has become the thickest and most solid load-bearing wall in the world’s industrial system. It supports not only Chinese industry, but also the world’s industry.

[04 77 years old, starting again]

We do not aim to surpass, nor do we shy away from competition. In the competition of failure to advance or retreat, if a country’s industry wants to continue to develop, it needs to continue to climb higher, not to surpass others, but to achieve a better self.

On the other side with the strongest system and scale, Chinese industry still has its own shortcomings that need to be filled, and there is room for continued efforts to improve. A high-end equipment made in China may have more than 90% of its parts made in China, but it is still stuck on one sensor and one control system; a highly automated factory uses domestic robots, but it may run foreign industrial software; in an industry with the largest output in the world, companies may still struggle to make small profits in a price war.

This is not a denial, but a change of test questions:In the past, we asked “Is it possible?”, then we asked “Can we build it on a large scale?”, and now we want to ask “Can we define the next generation first?”The 77-year-old New China Industry is now undergoing three transformations.

The first turn is from engineering innovation to original innovation. In 2025, China ranked among the top ten of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index for the first time; among the top 100 global innovation clusters released in September this year, China accounted for 25, ranking first in the world in number for the fourth consecutive year, and the “Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou” cluster ranked first in the world for two consecutive years.

The shipbuilding industry is an example that is already ahead of the curve: in 2025, China’s shipbuilding completions, new orders, and orders on hand will account for 56.1%, 69.0%, and 66.8% of the world’s total, respectively. Among the 18 major ship types 16 types of new orders ranked first in the world; Hudong-Zhonghua delivered the world’s first 24,000TEU-class LNG dual-fuel powered ultra-large container ship, and Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding delivered the world’s first sail-propelled Aframax product oil tanker. Chinese shipbuilders used to build ships according to other people’s drawings, but now they are beginning to define the next generation of ships for the global shipping industry.

Robots are another example. The latest report released by the International Federation of Robotics in September shows that China will have 354,000 newly installed industrial robots in 2025, accounting for nearly three-fifths of the world; more than half of the world’s approximately 174 complete humanoid robot manufacturers are in China. But scale doesn’t automatically translate into industrial leadership. Turning basic research into materials, turning algorithms into industrial software, turning prototypes into reliable equipment, and then turning technical advantages into standards and ecology is the real test. China’s industrial robots are still far behind developed countries in these aspects.

The second turn is from exporting products to global manufacturing. In 2024, BYD’s Rayong factory in Thailand will be put into production. It will take about 16 months from the start of construction to completion, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. In 2025, BYD’s Brazil factory will start local production. CATL produces battery cells in Germany and is jointly building a lithium iron phosphate battery factory with Stellantis in Spain, with a planned investment of up to 4.1 billion euros.

This road is not easy. In April this year, Botka, the mayor of Szeged, Hungary, walked into BYD’s first passenger car factory in Europe. The assembly workshop was being debugged. After it is officially put into production, its annual production capacity will be 150,000 vehicles in the first phase and is expected to create several jobs. However, its production was about a year later than originally planned. BYD Executive Vice President Li Ke said in June this year that vehicle assembly would only start in the fourth quarter. Chinese car companies, known for their speed at home, have to adapt to the approval, labor union, employment and supplier systems in Europe. Building a factory overseas is far more complicated than exporting complete vehicles.

But the direction is clear. In 2025, BYD’s overseas sales will exceed 1 million vehicles for the first time. A communiqué issued by the Ministry of Commerce and other departments in September showed that China’s overseas direct investment in 2025 was US$213.58 billion, an increase of 11.1%; by the end of the year, China had established 58,000 overseas companies in 189 countries and regions, employing 4.761 million people, including 2.965 million foreign employees.

Decades ago, European, American and Japanese companies came to China to open factories; today, Chinese companies are opening factories all over the world.

The third turn is from “making things cheaper” to “creating greater value”. In 2025, the export of the “three new items” of electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products will be close to 1.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.5 times compared with 2020.

According to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China produces about 70% of the world’s electric vehicles and more than 80% of power battery cells.Transforming new technologies from a luxury product for a few people into a daily necessities for the many people is China’s real contribution to human industrial civilization.

But the bigger the scale, the heavier the burden. When China’s production capacity in an industry is enough to influence global prices, the outside world’s concerns about industrial security and supply dependence will also increase. Chinese companies cannot move their domestic price wars overseas unchanged, but have to answer another set of questions: how many local jobs have been created, how many talents have been trained, how much tax revenue has been contributed, whether they respect local rules, and whether they can grow together with local suppliers.

In the future, Made in China will rely on better technology, more stable quality, more transparent governance and more credible cooperation to win the world, not just on lower prices.

The “15th Five-Year Plan” has set the pace for these transformations: the planning recommendations propose accelerating the construction of a manufacturing power and adhering to the direction of intelligence, greenness, and integration; the planning outline calls for an average annual increase in R&D investment of more than 7% across society.

In 1956, people on the streets of Changchun gathered around 12 liberation trucks and looked at them again and again. Today, no one will stop for a domestic car. Turning the wonders of the past into the commonplace of future generations, turning the exclusive enjoyment of a few into the daily life of ordinary people is the most remarkable thing about industrialization and the blessing that Chinese industry is bringing to the world.

It took China 77 years to create the most complete industrial world on earth; making this industrial world a new industrial civilization that can best benefit the development of mankind will be the direction for the 77-year-old New China’s industry to start again.

The road to the forefront of manufacturing a powerful country is always the only way to go.

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