Even as the Beijing Auto Show prepares to toast the Chinese market with its typical mixture of sex and tech, industry insiders have been stunned by recent news showing the market share of domestic Chinese manufacturers falling relative to their foreign counterparts, a trend that has persisted even in the face of strongly preferential government policies and even overt efforts to push the industry into Chinese hands. In this show, we ask what this failure means for Chinese ambitions to be an international automotive giant, and whether the government is losing its ability to pick favorites in the market?
Hosted by Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn, this episode of Sinica features special guest Greg Anderson, a political scientist and expert on the Chinese automobile market whose research involves tracking the differences between state-owned and private automotive companies, and who has found himself right in the middle of this curious puzzle.