Chinese BEV Makers Told 'Keep Auto Tech Safe from Foreigners'

After years of appropriating advanced technology from western nations, China is now pushing its own battery-electric vehicle makers to prevent their technology from falling into foreign hands.

The communist regime’s regulators are calling for their domestic producers to only set up assembly plants for knocked-down kits in global markets and not to construct BEVs from scratch, fearing the vehicles’ core technologies could be stolen by foreign agents, reports Bloomberg, quoting sources close to the matter.

Regulators suggest the automakers should employ the export of completely knocked-down (CKD) or semi-knocked-down (SKD) kits for models that are to be built locally in non-domestic markets.

In western countries, Chinese automakers are not bound by any compulsion to enter into a joint venture with a domestic producer as western automakers must do to operate plants in China, often with a state-owned entity.

While China insists there is no forced transfer of technologies within these joint venture agreements, many industry experts suggest that such transfers must be happening.

The mere fact that the Chinese authorities are now asking their own automakers to restrict foreign production to assembling knocked-down kits suggests they knew western companies have suffered from technology transfer and now want to protect their own from the same threat abroad.

Some Chinese automakers have already adopted CKD assembly in international markets, such as Great Wall Motor, which in January finalized the signing of a vehicle assembly partnership with Malaysian company EP Manufacturing Berhad.

Bloomberg also reports China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCON) met with more than a dozen automakers in July telling them not to make any automotive investments in India. Also, any domestic automaker planning to set up production facilities in Turkey must first notify the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which oversees China's BEV industry, and the Chinese embassy in Turkey.

The move could backfire in certain global markets where trade bodies may consider not enough of the knocked-down kits are locally sourced and so should be subject to punitive tariffs.