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The world wants Chinese tech. China is determined to keep it
China’s rivals are learning how to get what China won’t share
Apr 20th 2026|5 min read
THEY USED to gripe about too much technology transfer in China. But in the past year or so, foreign business and political leaders** have started to fret that too little is happening.** No longer do they worry so much about Western tech landing in Chinese hands; rather, they fear that China is now too effective at preventing its best stuff from passing to foreigners. A former Chinese trade official reacts to the pivot with empathy rather than mockery. “It is a bit hypocritical but it’s understandable,” he says.
It might be tempting to craft a morality play out of this, as if countries outside China are getting their comeuppance. But at its heart this is a practical problem, a question of whether China will be able to dig a moat around its world-leading technologies, from electric vehicles to artificial-intelligence-powered robots. Chaguan is inclined to take the other side of the bet—namely, that knowledge will flow as it normally does, from those who have it to those who want it. A reverse tech transfer will, over time, occur.
In principle, the mechanism is straightforward. Countries can offer Chinese firms market access as long as they set up local manufacturing. In practice, none of this is automatic—and all of it is fraught. The European Union is now at the forefront, recently proposing procurement rules that would require things such as battery-storage systems for Europe to be made there. Chinese companies wanting to be let in to European markets would have to invest in factories there. Developing countries also see promise. From Brazil to Vietnam, governments are opening their doors to Chinese EV companies and urging them to use local content. Yet it is early days. “We have been talking about tech transfer for just the past year and it’s still not really clear how it will work,” says one diplomat with refreshing candour.
One obstacle will be China itself. Over the past five years it has built an export-control regime, mimicking America’s. The stated goal is to protect national security but many controls are aimed at shoring up Chinese industry. Last year, for example, the commerce ministry said it would require companies to obtain licences before exporting technologies used in EV batteries. A Western trade official sees little prospect of Chinese officials letting out anything genuinely valuable. They have already reacted angrily to the made-in-Europe legislation, viewing it as a ploy to weaken Chinese industry. The saga of Manus, an AI startup, also highlights Chinese leaders’ paranoia. Founded in China, Manus shifted its business registration to Singapore last year, facilitating a sale to Meta, Facebook’s parent company. Chinese regulators are now attempting to unwind that deal and have barred Manus’s two co-founders from leaving the country.
But China’s own record in digesting foreign tech offers some guidance for the rest of the world. Persistence will be essential. China took three decades to hone its methods: incentives for investors; requirements for local joint ventures; content rules; partnerships with foreign universities; and, yes, theft of intellectual property. One critical need is more attention to Chinese scientific research: much of it, at least in pre-commercial phases, is in journals, says Tai Ming Cheung, an analyst of Chinese tech policy. “It’s something we didn’t think about that now we have to,” he says.
Moreover, it is a mistake to think tech transfer involves discrete bits of technology, such as a blueprint for photovoltaic cells. Instead, what matters is the whole process, including workforce training—a lesson that India is slowly absorbing. Apple, whose investments helped build up China’s supply chains, now produces a quarter of its iPhones in India. Even if most components are sourced from China, many are made in Chinese factories owned by foreign companies, according to analysis by Chris Miller and Vishnu Venugopalan for the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank. The implication is that the Chinese supply chain may ultimately prove more mobile than it currently seems.
At the same time the rest of the world will have to follow a different formula from China’s. Instead of relying on the government’s top-down strategy, other countries will have to depend on companies themselves. The auto sector offers an early indication. Almost all global carmakers—General Motors, Hyundai and Volkswagen, to name a few—are now developing EVs in China, learning from local firms. Many ideas are also seeping out through research-and-development partnerships. “The biggest companies are off limits but there are thousands of suppliers to work with,” says one Chinese executive with a foreign carmaker.
China’s tech controls may also have the opposite of their intended effect. For young innovators in AI, the crackdown on Manus is chilling. If they are unable to sell to foreigners, they will never get full value. That will only give them more incentive to take ideas abroad early on. The ultra-competitive Chinese business environment pushes in the same direction. The Chinese auto executive says many local suppliers are starved for profits, which makes foreign partnerships yet more tempting.
Transfer portal
For all its manufacturing prowess, China still wants what the West has to offer, notably in the semiconductor industry. In that sense the current wrangling over tech transfers has an air of negotiation to it. As the former Chinese trade official puts it, China will not fully benefit from its inventiveness unless it can export its own technology. The point, he says, is to extract a price from others, including access to their latest innovations.
This is not a winning proposition for now, especially as American officials want to keep China away from cutting-edge chips. But it points to a possible, even a likely, future in which tech flows both ways across China’s borders. That may worry leaders in both Beijing and Washington. They will, however, struggle to stop it. ■
世界渴望中國科技，中國決心據為己有
中國的競爭對手正學習如何獲取中國不願分享的技術
2026年4月20日 | 5分鐘閱讀
過去，人們總是在抱怨中國有太多的技術轉移。但在過去一年左右的時間裡，外國商界和政治領袖開始擔心技術轉移發生的得太少。他們不再那麼擔心西方科技落入中國手中；相反地，他們擔心中國現在過於有效地阻止其最優秀的技術流向外國人。一位前中國貿易官員對這種轉變感到感同身受，而非嘲諷。他說：「這有點虛偽，但可以理解。」
把這件事塑造成一部道德劇，彷彿中國以外的國家正在自食其果，或許很吸引人。但其核心這是一個切實的技術問題：中國是否能夠在其世界領先的技術（從電動汽車到人工智慧驅動的機器人）周圍挖出一條護城河。對此，「茶館」傾向於站在賭局的另一邊——即知識會像往常一樣，從擁有者流向渴望者。隨著時間的推移，一場「反向技術轉移」將會發生。
原則上，這個機制非常簡單。各國只要要求中國企業在當地設立製造基地，就可以向其開放市場。但在實踐中，這一切都不是自動發生的——而且每一步都充滿了挑戰。歐盟目前走在前列，最近提出了採購法規，要求供應歐洲的電池儲能系統等產品必須在歐洲本土製造。想要進入歐洲市場的中國公司必須在當地投資設廠。發展中國家也看到了希望。從巴西到越南，各國政府正向中國電動車企業敞開大門，並督促它們使用本地零組件。然而，這一切才剛開始。一位外交官帶著令人耳目一新的坦率說道：「我們在過去一年才開始討論技術轉移，目前仍不清楚這將如何運作。」
其中一個障礙將是中國本身。在過去五年中，中國建立了一套模仿美國的出口管制體系。其宣稱的目標是維護國家安全，但許多管制措施旨在保護中國的產業鏈。例如，去年商務部表示，企業在出口用於電動車電池的技術之前必須取得許可。一位西方貿易官員認為，中國官員幾乎不可能讓任何真正有價值的技術流出。他們已經對歐洲製造的立法做出了憤怒的反應，認為這是削弱中國工業的陰謀。人工智慧初創公司 Manus 的故事也突顯了中國領導人的偏執。Manus 創立於中國，去年將其業務註冊地遷至新加坡，以便利出售給 Facebook 的母公司 Meta。中國監管機構目前正試圖撤銷該筆交易，並禁止 Manus 的兩位聯合創始人離境。
不過，中國自身消化外國科技的歷史紀錄，為世界其他地區提供了一些指引。堅持不懈是至關重要的。中國花了三十年的時間來磨練其方法：給予投資者激勵措施、要求成立當地合資企業、規定在地化比例限制、與外國大學建立合作夥伴關係，當然，還有盜取智慧財產權。中國科技政策分析師張太銘（Tai Ming Cheung）表示，一個關鍵的需求是必須更加關注中國的科學研究：至少在商業化前階段，許多研究都發表在期刊上。他說：「這是我們以前沒想過、但現在必須去做的事。」
此外，如果認為技術轉移只涉及具體的技術碎片（例如光伏電池的藍圖），那就錯了。相反地，重要的是包含員工培訓在內的整個流程——這是印度正在慢慢吸收的教訓。曾協助在中國建立供應鏈的蘋果公司（Apple），現在有四分之一的 iPhone 在印度生產。根據美國企業研究院（American Enterprise Institute）智庫學者克里斯·米勒（Chris Miller）和維什努·維努戈帕蘭（Vishnu Venugopalan）的分析，即使大多數零組件仍源自中國，但許多零組件是在外國公司擁有的中國工廠中製造的。這意味著，中國的供應鏈最終可能會被證明比目前看起來更具流動性。
與此同時，世界其他地區必須採用與中國不同的模式。其他國家不能依賴政府自上而下的戰略，而必須依靠企業自身。汽車行業提供了一個早期的跡象。幾乎所有全球汽車製造商——通用（GM）、現代（Hyundai）和福斯（Volkswagen，又譯大眾），僅舉幾例——目前都在中國研發電動車，向本土企業學習。許多想法也透過研發合作夥伴關係滲透出來。一家外國汽車製造商的中國高管表示：「最大型的公司是不能碰的，但有成千上萬家供應商可以合作。」
中國的技術管制也可能產生適得其反的效果。對於人工智慧領域的年輕創新者來說，對 Manus 的打壓令人心寒。如果他們無法將公司賣給外國人，就永遠無法獲得完整的價值。這只會給他們更多動力，在早期就將想法帶到國外。內捲極其嚴重的中國商業環境也推動了相同的方向。上述汽車大廠的高管表示，許多本土供應商正處於利潤飢渴狀態，這使得與外國建立合作關係變得更具吸引力。
轉移門戶
儘管中國擁有強大的製造實力，但它仍然渴望西方所能提供的東西，特別是在半導體產業。從這個意義上說，當前圍繞技術轉移的爭執帶有一種談判的氣氛。正如那位前中國貿易官員所言，除非中國能夠出口自己的技術，否則它無法完全從自己的創造力中獲益。他說，關鍵在於向他人索取代價，包括獲取他們最新的創新技術。
目前這還不是一個穩贏的提議，特別是在美國官員希望讓中國遠離尖端晶片的情況下。但它指出了一個可能、甚至很大概率發生的未來：科技將在中國邊境進行雙向流動。這可能會讓北京和華盛頓的領導人感到擔憂。然而，他們將很難阻止這一切。
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