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Chinese companies accelerate a purge of foreign components of their supply chains, as trade tensions with the United States threaten to haste the decoupling between the two largest economies in the world.
In the weeks since President Donald Trump struck China With high prices, more than two dozen companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen have told investors that they increased efforts to obtain interior inputs to replace foreign products or should benefit as their peers have located purchases.
The financial documents, examined by the Financial Times, were issued by companies covering the sectors of semiconductors, chemicals and medical devices. They demonstrate Trump's lasting potential impact trade war By performing a permanent reorganization of the supply chains.
Beijing has long been pressure for industrial self -sufficiency with policies called in China 2025 and the “double circulation” strategy of President Xi Jinping, which aims to strengthen economic independence while maintaining selective global links.
This campaign had been supercharged by Trump's prices, which created an additional momentum for Chinese companies in order to try to isolate itself from the geopolitical return, as well as by the charging of Beijing on imports from the United States, which are up to 125%.
The prices would only increase Beijing's desire for Chinese companies to become more self-sufficient, said Camille Boulenois, Rhodium Group analyst and author of a recent report on the Made in China 2025 program. “They clearly feel the urgency,” she added. “This will point them out to accelerate as much as possible.“”
People familiar with the thought of Chinese officials said Beijing considered the commercial conflict as a validation of its autonomy policies. They added that officials thought that such initiatives had China equipped with the weather The last wave of American pressure.
“They believe that China can now survive anything from the United States or the West and that has given the country the strength to withstand Trump's commercial requests,” said one of the people.
Estun Automation, one of the main manufacturers of Chinese industrial robots, told investors in its annual report last month that it “quickly captured the main customers previously held by foreign brands” as well as the optimization of its own supply chain to “increase the internal substitution of raw materials”.
The increase in location “reduces costs,” said a business manager. “(It's not just the trade war – the whole world economy is unstable. We want to be able and ready to change (suppliers),” they said.
The manufacturer of emergency equipment belonging to the State, China Harzone Industry Corp, told investors last month that, even if it had already “vigorously promoted the interior substitution” for years, in response to prices, it would increase its share of local suppliers to replace the handful of components which it always provided with North America.
The company has added that it would also develop a double-circular export model to Southeast Asia, Africa and South America.
Some analysts argued that the Made in China 2025 plan, which was launched in 2015, helped trigger the trade war During Trump's first term by setting explicit objectives for national companies to dominate the strategic sectors.
A recent report from the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said that politics had succeeded in industries such as electric vehicles, shipbuilding and rail equipment – where Chinese manufacturing is now leading – but warned that it had also encouraged investments and ineffective overcapacity in certain sectors and had put tensions with business partners.
The thrust reinforced by China to prioritize the interior supply could also affect suppliers of third countries.
Thinkon Semiconductor, a supplier of Liaoning -based silicon materials, told investors that he would reduce foreign suppliers to “increase risk resilience”. A company manager said that he did not import American products and worked to replace the chemical reagents of Japan, South Korea and Europe.
“To avoid other risks, we will continue to advance our location efforts,” said the person, asking not to be appointed.
Estun Automation and Thinkon Semiconductor did not respond to requests for comments.
He Zhixing, who works in the corporate affairs of the manufacturer of carriers Hunan Sund Technological Corp in the central province of Hunan, said that the reprisal prices in China led the manufacturers to abandon the American bearings used in steam and gas turbines.
“They contact us, asking us to crawl production,” he said.
“Right now, everyone is talking about substitution,” he added. In the long term, he predicted, many customers would change for good. “It will be a progressive replacement process.”
