China has found a solution at a time of intensified competition with the United States for dominance of the technology supply chain, the Wall Street Journal reported on March 16. That is to cultivate enterprises called "little giants", and cultivate thousands of them.
In recent years, China has spent more money on helping to achieve self-sufficiency and establish dominance in a number of industries, in a move aimed at breaking through Beijing's so-called technology "choke" problem, the report said.
China is achieving this goal through two plans. One of them is to provide support to companies entering the Little Giant program, which are often small, specialized companies that are considered capable of mastering key core technologies.
Another program, known as the "individual champion" of manufacturing, aims to identify and support local companies that have become or are expected to become global leaders in important markets.
Societe Generale believes that these promising "little giants" are trying to align themselves with Beijing's long-term priorities.
At the "Endeavour New era" theme achievement exhibition held in Beijing on October 8, 2022, audiences are taking an overview of the distribution of new "Little Giant" enterprises in strategic emerging industries. (photo by Li Xin)
According to the report, many of the companies on the list of "little giants" and "individual champions" are not well-known in the outside world, but play an important role in emerging fields such as aerospace, renewable energy, electronics and semiconductors.
China has accelerated its plans in recent years as the US has stepped up efforts to curb China's technological progress and the latter has sought to become more self-sufficient in the field. They took inspiration from the work of Hermann Simon, a German scholar, who used the term "invisible champion" to describe small and medium-sized enterprises that were seen as the cornerstone of the country's industrial strength.
Liu Zhibiao, an expert at the Yangtze River Institute of Industrial Economics at Nanjing University, wrote last year that the "invisible champion" determines the key point for China to become a manufacturing power.
China announced the first batch of manufacturing champion demonstration enterprises in 2016. About two years later, it began selecting the first "Little Giants" companies, partly to help companies overcome technological bottlenecks and to nurture future individual champions; the country is reported to have nurtured about 9000 such companies.
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