China's all-round dominance, from batteries to medicine, from trains to AI

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Subscribers only Over three decades, China's promise became a trap for European industry

Published on June 6, 2026

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Subscribers only How China, the world's factory, transformed itself into an industrial superpower

Published yesterday

Part 4/4

Subscribers only Why Europe is unable to defend its industry against the 'second Chinese shock'

Published today

Part 1/4

Subscribers only Over three decades, China's promise became a trap for European industry

Published on June 6, 2026

Part 3/4

Subscribers only How China, the world's factory, transformed itself into an industrial superpower

Published yesterday

Part 4/4

Subscribers only Why Europe is unable to defend its industry against the 'second Chinese shock'

Published today

Published on June 6, 2026

Part 3/4

Subscribers only How China, the world's factory, transformed itself into an industrial superpower

Published yesterday

Part 4/4

Subscribers only Why Europe is unable to defend its industry against the 'second Chinese shock'

Published today

Series'How China is Devouring Europe' (2/4). Beijing has caught up with and then surpassed the West across an impressive number of technologies and economic sectors, seeking to control entire value chains.

China is no longer content with assembling iPhones and manufacturing generic drugs for the entire planet. It is locking down its dominance over the cornerstones of the economy of tomorrow: Industrial artificial intelligence, robotics, batteries, biotechnology, renewable and nuclear energy. In all these fields, it has sought to control the entire value chain. To entrench its lead on all of these fronts at once, Beijing has followed a simple yet relentless formula: massive investment in research, targeting public subsidies at strategic economic sectors and locking down its control over key raw materials. Advanced economies, which outsourced their production from the 1990s on, are now discovering, with growing concern, the degree to which they have become dependent on China for nearly all emerging technologies.

Unrivaled dominance in electric cars

In 2025, Chinese brands controlled about two-thirds of all electric vehicle sales worldwide. And in 2026, as its domestic market for fully electric cars contracted, partly due to purchase subsidies for electric cars being gradually phased out, China's exports soared. They doubled in a single year, reaching 183,000 units in March alone. Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, predicted that Chinese electric car exports to the European Union would see a 20% average annual growth rate between 2026 and 2028. China's BYD, the world's sixth-largest automaker, even acquired its own fleet of cargo ships in order to independently export 1 million cars per year.

Robotic arms working on an electric vehicle production line, at a Volkswagen factory in Hefei, Anhui Province, China, on February 4, 2026. FLORENCE LO/REUTERS

An International Energy Agency study, updated in November 2025, found that production costs for electric vehicles in China were still 30% lower than those at factories in the world's most advanced economies. Worker wages are not the main factor, as nearly everything is automated at factories owned by Nio (in Hefei), XPeng (Guangzhou) and BYD (Zhengzhou). Robotic arms lift and rotate steel frames, which robot welders then handle, all while autonomous carts deliver hoods, trunks, windshields and doors, and 3D scanners check for the slightest defect. The handful of young, silent workers present connect sensors and install seals and turn signals on the vehicles, which are attached to rails that slowly move toward the exit. In 2025, China had 229 car manufacturers that employed 1.21 million people in vehicle production. That year, 34.5 million cars rolled out of their factories.

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