Hai Guotu Chi: New Opportunities and Paths for Globalization of Chinese Automobiles

On the afternoon of June 12, at the plenary meeting of the "2026 China Automobile Chongqing Forum", Zhao Yang, Vice President of the Automobile Industry Branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, chaired the theme forum "Hai Guotu Zhi - New Opportunities in the Global Market and the Road to the Globalization of Chinese Brands". Liu Xinyu, General Manager of Nissan China Investment Co., Ltd.; Xue Xu, Professor of EDP Lecture at Peking University School of Economics; Jiang Jian, Vice President of Bosch China; Ni Wei, Chairman of Chelian Zhihui (Beijing) Technology Development Co., Ltd.; Cai Ming, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer of Zebra Intelligence; Meng Qingxin, Senior Vice President of Siweitu Xin; Lu You, General Manager of NeueHCT Products and Markets, Zhidong Xincheng; Liu Xiaobei, Chief Technology Officer of Cheling Technology; and other guests conducted in-depth discussions on topics such as global market opportunities, Chinese brands going overseas, localization operations, intelligent competition, and data compliance. They talked about the opportunities and challenges of China's automobile globalization development. Liu Xinyu: China's strong R&D capabilities are feeding back Nissan's global business into China for 41 years, and Nissan has 19 million customers. How do multinational companies transform from "global car China sales" to "Chinese car global sales"? The answers given by Nissan are: "in China, for China" in 2024, and "in China, to the world" at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show. Liu Xinyu said that the three words "in China" have not changed, representing the persistence of trust in 19 million Chinese customers; “Going global” means bringing China's better products, more competitive supply chains and more advanced technologies to the global market. Liu Xinyu, general manager of Nissan China Investment Co., Ltd. This year, Nissan announced that China will become its export and innovation base. In terms of parts exports, Nissan exports nearly 2 million parts every year, using China's cost advantages and technical advantages to serve the global market. In terms of vehicle exports, Nissan and Dongfeng established an import and export company to sell Chinese-made cars to many regions around the world, realizing the coordinated development of Chinese products and overseas service systems. Zhengzhou Nissan pickup trucks and Dongfeng Nissan N7 and other models have successively entered overseas markets. At the same time, China's strong R&D capabilities are feeding back Nissan's global business. Liu Xinyu said that from the past "technology import and exchange market" to today's "technology going out to promote cooperation", China's automobile industry has entered a new stage of development. At the same time, he shared the experience of enterprises going overseas, and believed that it was necessary to make good use of Chinese talents and promote the localization of employment. Xue Xu: Within 10 years, China's automobile exports may exceed 10 million vehicles. Xue Xu said that the development of China's automobile industry has gone through three stages: "international brand Chineseization", "Chinese automobile branding" and "Chinese brand internationalization". Nowadays, Chinese automobiles are ushering in an important period of opportunity for brand internationalization. He believes that in the final analysis, the development of enterprises is inseparable from the improvement of entrepreneurship and core team capabilities. In the future, the internationalization of Chinese brands should be based on the spirit of Chinese culture, combining the creativity, research spirit and struggle spirit of Chinese people with modern commercial civilization to form an international brand concept with Chinese characteristics. Xue Xu, a lecturer in EDP at the Peking University School of Economics, faced the rise of protectionism in some countries. Xue Xu believes that global consumer demand for high-quality automotive products will not change. As long as we adhere to the combination of traditional Chinese cultural spirit and modern business rationality, Chinese automobiles can come out of a development path with their own characteristics. He believes that there is a realistic basis for China's automobile exports to exceed 10 million vehicles or more in the next decade or so, and this growth is more due to the new markets created by China's manufacturing capacity, rather than a simple segmentation of the existing market share. Xue Xu is confident about the future prospects of the international development of Chinese automobile brands. Jiang Jian: The technological change and industrial restructuring brought about a new topic Jiang Jian introduced. Founded in 1886, Bosch started from the spark plug business, grew along with the automobile industry, and entered the Chinese market in 1909. Jiang Jian said that Bosch is currently facing multiple issues such as technological change, global industrial restructuring, and deepening the layout of the Chinese market. First of all, the automotive industry is undergoing a profound transformation from the era of traditional internal combustion engines to the era of new energy, intelligence and networking. In the face of industrial transformation, Bosch has continued to increase its layout in the field of electric drive and intelligence in recent years. Secondly, as a global company with 420,000 employees, Bosch is moving forward with organizational adjustments and talent structure upgrades to adapt to the new requirements brought about by industrial changes. In addition, how to further develop the value of the Chinese market and Chinese innovation is also an important issue for Bosch. Jiang Jian said that he hopes to better serve Bosch's global business with Chinese innovation, while supporting more Chinese companies to go overseas. Ni Wei: Parts and components are the basis for the whole vehicle to go to sea. Ni Wei said that after many multinational companies, including Bosch, entered China, they played a positive role in promoting the development of China's automobile industry, especially the parts industry. He believes that the ability of parts and components is always an important basis for the international competitiveness of complete vehicles. If the parts capacity fails to meet international standards, it will be difficult for vehicle products to be truly internationally competitive. Ni Wei, chairman of Chelian Zhihui (Beijing) Technology Development Co., Ltd., faces technical thresholds, regulatory requirements and carbon footprint issues encountered by enterprises in the process of going to sea. Ni Wei believes that any enterprise will face challenges in the process of globalization, and the most important thing is to realize the globalization of ideas and ideas. If companies do not think globally, they will face greater challenges in the face of a complex international environment. He suggested that we carefully study the development process of multinational enterprises in China, sum up experience and grasp the rules, so as to provide reference for the international development of Chinese automobile enterprises. Cai Ming: Intelligence is an important driver in the second half of the market. Cai Ming said that Zebra Intelligence is transforming from an intelligent operating system enterprise to an artificial intelligence enterprise. At present, it has formed three business segments: mass production AI OS, exclusive cockpit large model, and AI Agent ecological service. He pointed out that the current development of overseas markets has become an important direction for the development of Chinese automobile enterprises. With the increasing penetration of new energy vehicles, Chinese automakers are entering a new stage of development, and intelligence is becoming an important driving force for the development of China's automobile globalization. Cai Ming, senior vice president and chief product officer of Zebra Intelligence, introduced that Zebra Intelligence currently adopts a "two-legged walk" sea strategy: on the one hand, it serves Chinese brands to go overseas, and its business has covered 16 countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, Europe, and Oceania; on the other hand, it serves international brands such as Volkswagen and BMW, and has served nearly 10 million vehicles. In his view, Chinese innovation is fast becoming an important business card in the global market competition. Meng Qingxin: Outbound data compliance is a "necessary ticket", Meng Qingxin said that outbound localization compliance is not optional, but a basic threshold for enterprises to enter the international market. As a new Tier 1 enterprise that has transformed from a graphics merchant to a software and hardware integrated solution provider, Four Dimensions Tu New relies on the real-world data capabilities accumulated over more than 20 years to continue to provide support for enterprises to go overseas. Taking the European market as an example, he introduced the need to strictly comply with regulatory requirements such as GDPR when conducting high-quality dataset business for intelligent driving. To this end, the company has established a complete set of data compliance toolchains. Meng Qingxin, new senior vice president of Four Dimensions Map, believes that enterprises need to focus on four aspects to promote overseas localization operations: comprehensively studying local laws and regulations, fully integrating local user habits, improving local data operation capabilities, and achieving data localization deployment and security management. He said that compliant data localization operations not only enhance product competitiveness and brand value, but also help companies explore more commercialization opportunities. Lu You: Lu You, who uses Chinese technology to serve the global market, said that although the new intelligent driving process has only been established for two years, the core team has accumulated intelligent driving technology for more than ten years. The company is positioned to "use Chinese technology to serve the global market". At present, Lu You, general manager of neueHCT products and markets, is following the Chinese car companies to promote overseas layout at the same time. From basic visual products to urban and high-speed Noa products, it is expected to achieve mass production in Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand markets one after another. He believes that data compliance is an important challenge in the process of intelligent driving to sea. As products enter the mass production phase, more and more customers require data to remain in the local market for continuous iteration, so it is necessary to establish a cloud infrastructure that meets local regulatory requirements overseas. Lu You also said that in recent years, the relevant domestic regulations and standards have been continuously improved, and many fields have reached the international advanced level, which provides strong support for China's intelligent driving technology to go to sea. Liu Xiaobei: The data shared by Liu Xiaobei shows that 30% to 40% of the passenger cars and commercial vehicles exported from China flow to fleet scenarios such as online car hailing, rental cars and logistics vehicles. At the same time, a large number of export vehicles have not yet achieved connected operation, and even in connected vehicles, the continuous payment rate of users needs to be improved. Liu Xiaobei, CTO of Cheling Technology, believes that going to sea is not only a product export, but also a continuous service capability that requires vehicles to be connected, intelligent and operational. One of the most important tasks at present is to accelerate the construction of connected and intelligent infrastructure and operation systems in overseas markets. Liu Xiaobei said that at present, domestic cloud service providers, network operators and artificial intelligence enterprises have strong overseas deployment capabilities, creating favorable conditions for the construction of related infrastructure. Participants generally agreed that the development of China's automotive globalization is moving from a new stage of product development to a new stage of brand, technology, service and system capabilities. In the face of a more complex international market environment, continuous improvement of innovation capabilities, localized operation capabilities and global operation capabilities will become an important support for Chinese automobile companies to expand the global market.