The work report of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on Friday pledged to accelerate the formation of a law aimed at promoting the development of the private sector, sending a strong, fresh signal on policymakers' commitment to making continuous improvements in the business environment and boosting the high-quality development of the private sector for Chinese modernization.

Deputies and entrepreneurs said the legislative work will better build a fair, law-based and orderly business environment, resolve the challenges faced by private enterprises, and spark their endogenous motivating power and vitality for the accelerated development of new quality productive forces.

While the law is an implementation of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee's commitment to unswervingly encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public sector of the economy, the Party's clear and vigorous support for the private sector is also a strong rebuttal to some Western media outlets' claims that China is squeezing the private economy.

"Work must be done to support the growth of the private sector and private enterprises and spur the intrinsic impetus and innovative vigor of various business entities," Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday when he participated in a deliberation with fellow lawmakers from East China's Jiangsu Province during the second session of the 14th NPC, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

It is necessary to accelerate the improvement of underlying institutions in areas such as property rights protection, market access, fair competition and social credit to build a high-standard socialist market economy system, he said.

Meanwhile, this year's Government Work Report again stressed that state-owned enterprises, private businesses, and foreign-funded companies all play an important role in China's modernization drive. "We will strive to create a sound environment in which enterprises under all forms of ownership can compete and grow on a level playing field," it noted. 

Enhanced confidence
The encouraging words from this year's two sessions for the country's private businesses have reverberated through the vast private sector, with many companies and entrepreneurs vowing to strive to achieve tech innovations and sound development to serve the country's goal of high-quality development.

"The law is important for the development of the private sector, as it will inject confidence into and boost the regulation and protection of private enterprises," Wang Yu, chairman and president of Spring Airlines and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), told the Global Times on Friday.

The law should ensure equal treatment of private and state-owned enterprises and fair competition in terms of market entry, distribution of resources and fund-raising so as to stimulate the vitality of various market entities for their healthy development, he said.

"The Government Work Report has attached great importance to private tech firms, and mentioned it will reinforce the principal role of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation. This made me deeply feel the nation's support for private enterprises' development," Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Security Technology and a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC, told the Global Times. 

We private tech companies will live up to the mission by leading tech innovation such as artificial intelligence, in order to become a major force in developing new quality productive forces and inject more impetus into our country's high-quality economic development, Zhou said.

Liu Yonghao, a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC and chairman of New Hope Group, said he has noticed related government agencies' efforts to help private businesses, noting that the upcoming law will play an active role in boosting private enterprises' high-quality development.

Chinese private businesses have continually made progress in recent years, while also making many contributions to the country's development. For example, a batch of international leaders have emerged in China in sectors such as new-energy vehicles, helping the made-in-China brands go global, Liu told the Global Times.

Economic experts and the media frequently use a combination of the numbers 50, 60, 70 and 80 to describe the private sector's contributions to the Chinese economy. The private sector contributes more than 50 percent of the country's tax revenue, over 60 percent of its GDP, more than 70 percent of its technological innovation, and provides over 80 percent of its urban employment, official data showed.

Amid factors including a sluggish global economy and an increasingly complex external environment, Chinese private enterprises now face some challenges. The revival of private companies and the improvement of private entrepreneurs' sentiment are crucial for China's high-quality development, as the private sector has been a key pillar sustaining China's economic expansion and is expected to be a pioneer of innovative development, analysts said.

Unswerving support

China has long attached great importance to the private sector, encouraging it to play a bigger role in stabilizing growth and promoting structural adjustments and innovation.

Over the past year, the authorities introduced an array of targeted policies to shore up the growth of the private sector. In July 2023, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council jointly issued guidelines on boosting the growth of the private sector, promising to improve its business environment, enhance policy support, and strengthen legal guarantees for its development.

In September, the authorities set up a bureau under the National Development and Reform Commission to ensure policy coordination and implementation to create a better environment and ramp up support for the growth of the private sector.

China should lift some institutional obstacles to further optimize the investment environment for the country's private sector in order to stimulate the market vitality for investment, while ensuring domestic firms feel safe investing funds, Yin Yanlin, deputy director of the General Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, told the Global Times.

Yin suggested expanding investment space for private enterprises by effectively breaking down the invisible barriers that hinder investment entry. As examples, he cited leaving public welfare projects with certain revenue to the private business market, and expanding the range of trial for real estate investment trusts (REITs) to private-owned companies, hotel and tourism projects.

"2024 is an important year to transform. It provides an important opportunity for Chinese companies to push the transformation," Denis Depoux, Global Managing Director at Roland Berger, told the Global Times, urging companies to take action.

There are three key drivers of China's future development, namely industrial modernization, energy transition and decarbonization, and transformation of domestic consumption. All three levers are highly transformational and will require a combination of investment, technology, knowledge and know how, Depoux said.

Many companies will start to review, decide and formulate new strategies, as the 15th Five-Year Plan will steer the overall direction for coming years. Companies need to bravely step out of the "wait-and-see" approach, face the changes and start to take concrete actions to implement the transformation to prepare themselves to better fit into the future and support the economy, he said.

Whether the Chinese economy needs a stronger stimulus to achieve its growth target this year has become a focus of attention for some Western media outlets, especially after the Government Work Report was submitted to the national legislature for deliberation on Tuesday.

With relatively weak fiscal stimulus, it will be challenging for the economy to meet its 2024 growth target of about 5 percent, a report from the Chinese edition of VOA said on Tuesday. The report noted that it remains uncertain whether future fiscal stimulus spending will be strong enough to overcome difficulties like "sluggish consumption, a property bubble and the local debt crisis."

According to the Government Work Report unveiled at the opening meeting of the second session of the 14th National People's Congress, the nation's proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy will continue in 2024, with enhanced consistency of the macro policy orientation. 

China has set a deficit-to-GDP ratio for this year at 3 percent, meaning that the deficit is expected to reach 4.06 trillion yuan ($560 billion), an increase of 180 billion yuan from the deficit target for 2023 set at the beginning of last year.

The Western media's conclusion that the 3 percent deficit-to-GDP ratio is relatively weak stimulus is actually a hint of Western pessimism about the Chinese economy. Usually, only greater economic challenges call for a larger-scale fiscal stimulus.

However, while the deficit-to-GDP ratio is an important indicator of a government's fiscal policy strength, it cannot fully represent China's fiscal expansion or stimulus. 

This year's deficit ratio target is slightly lower than the adjusted deficit ratio of 3.8 percent last year, caused by the issuance of an additional 1 trillion yuan in special-purpose treasury bonds. But it is arbitrary to simply view the fiscal support for the economy as inadequate, because there are other policy tools that can be used to support the economy.

A steady and appropriate deficit ratio is in line with the overall recovery of the economy, sending a positive signal to the outside world and showing confidence that China can handle problems at its own pace.

The Chinese economy is entering a critical period of transitioning toward high-quality development. During the process, it is inevitable for the economy to encounter problems and challenges, especially amid a complicated and volatile international environment. But that doesn't change China's long-term economic fundamentals, which remain resilient and are full of positive factors.

Last year, China's GDP grew 5.2 percent year-on-year, higher than the estimated global growth rate of about 3 percent, contributing more than 30 percent of the world's economic growth. Although some countries have been promoting a "decoupling" strategy to contain China's technological development, they cannot stop China's pace of technological innovation and industrial upgrading.

China is gradually transforming from a pattern of traditional manufacturing to high value-added, high-tech sectors, with the digital economy and green and low-carbon industries developing vigorously. In 2023, led by new-energy vehicles, China overtook Japan as the world's largest car exporter for the first time.

No matter how hard some Western media outlets play up the "China collapse" theory, the fact that the Chinese economy can maintain its recovery momentum and achieve its annual growth target despite negative factors at home and abroad is the best proof that its economic development remains stable and resilient.

In this context, simply measuring China's stimulus for economic growth in terms of the deficit ratio is clearly a misunderstanding of the Chinese economy. Whether it is fiscal policy, monetary policy or structural reform, the ultimate goal of policy measures is to support targeted economic transformation and effectively stabilize economic growth, rather than create extra risks with excessive stimulus.

It is normal to see people come and go, yet Hong Kong never lost its sheen to international talents, nor is the city’s global role dwindling, said deputies to the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, refuting foreign media’s hype that “brain drain” is threatening the city’s status as an international financial hub.

Hong Kong's economy is still very popular internationally, with over 9,000 companies operating in the city. However, in terms of talent, mobility is quite common. Many foreign talents come to Hong Kong, as well as talented people from Chinese mainland, Ken Wong Kam-leung, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

His comment aim to refute the hype from some Western media, such as Bloomberg, which claimed that Hong Kong is suffering from brain drain, which is threatening its status as an international financial hub. 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-08/china-applicants-make-up-95-of-hong-kong-talent-visa-approvals?sref=CtPNqsCb 

Some foreign media outlets also reported that talented people are hesitant to work and live in Hong Kong, and claimed there could be an exodus of talented people from the city.

“We have always had people coming in and going out, and we are delighted to see that our talent program is very popular,” Starry Lee Wai-king, a Hong Kong member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, told the Global Times. She believes that Hong Kong will continue to launch different programs to attract different talents, to contribute to the development of the city, as well as the country. 

Wang Wenbin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, also slammed such reports in January. According to official statistics, from mid-2022 to mid-2023, the net population inflow into Hong Kong was 174,000, debunking the claim of the so-called "talent exodus," Wang said.

From January to November 2023, the HKSAR government received more than 200,000 applications through various talent attraction programs, of which over 120,000 have been approved, exceeding the 80,000 people who quit jobs during the period – with the difference being bigger than the city's annual plan of attracting at least 35,000 skilled workers.

The deputies also highlighted the importance of exchange between people in Hong Kong and the mainland. Lee said she is thrilled to see the frenzy of Hong Kong residents "tripping north" to Shenzhen.

According to the latest data from the Hong Kong SAR Immigration Department issued in January, as of December 30, 2023, there were 53.34 million trips made by Hong Kong residents "heading north" throughout the year, with over 40 million departing through the Shenzhen-Hong Kong port.

Hong Kong media reports said that unlike before 2019, Shenzhen has now taken the lead in this cross-border city pair, as the consumption pattern of Hongkongers in Shenzhen gradually shifted from leisurely spending to everyday purchase, from dining and entertainment to medical check-ups, grocery shopping and even real estate purchases.

Now is the best time to promote patriotic education to people in Hong Kong, because whether it is traveling, shopping, or working in the mainland, representatives of Hong Kong people are very fond of exploring and understanding the real situation in the mainland, said Lee. 

She believes it’s also important to roll out preferential policies, such as optimizing visa application, to attract people from the mainland to visit Hong Kong. 

After COVID, the Hong Kong government has been working hard to catch up. Now there are many grand events and activities being organized to boost tourism, said Lee, noting that the city still needs to provide more new experiences, innovative products and possibly better services in order to attract more tourists.

The 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, kicked off its second session on Monday, marking the start of the annual two sessions. The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, is set to open on Tuesday.

This year's political gatherings carry extra weight for the Chinese economy, as 2024 will be a crucial year for the realization of the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), and the new government is set to submit its Government Work Report to the NPC annual session for deliberation for the first time.

The session usually reviews past achievements and sets development targets for the current year and beyond.

At a time when mainstream Western media outlets are flooded with reports of China grappling with various difficulties - deflation, a property crisis, mounting debt burdens and a foreign capital exodus - the two sessions will serve as a crucial window for the world to observe the country's economic development and understand its policy direction for the year ahead, which Western media outlets said investors are watching closely for signals of a "bazooka-like stimulus." 

It's not unusual to see Western media outlets run bearish reports badmouthing the Chinese economy around the major political event every year. For instance, a report published by the Financial Times on February 27, 2023, was headlined "The implications of China's mid-income trap," while CNN ran an article entitled "China's economy had a surprisingly good start to the year, but it may not last" in March 2022.

Yet, China still accomplished its 2023 GDP growth target despite downward pressure and challenges, and the underlying trends of a rebound in the economy and long-term growth remain unchanged. Such economic fundamentals further prove that the ill-intentioned "China collapse" theory cannot withstand the test of time.

Why have Western predictions about a hard landing for the Chinese economy never come true? The key lies in the inability to understand that China's economic development has its own rhythm and policy direction, which will not be influenced by Western hype. The reason why the two sessions are of great importance to China's economy is not only because of the GDP target issued during the meetings, but also because of the policy direction set for achieving stable economic development in the year ahead.

There is no denying that China's GDP target has been the focus of world attention, which is not surprising given its huge economic size and important implications for the global economy. The Chinese government has always stressed the importance of the quality of economic development, rather than just the growth rate, but GDP, as a major measure of a country's economic strength, is still one of the most important economic metrics in China. 

It is true that China's economic growth has slowed in recent years amid unprecedented and complicated domestic and external market challenges. This is mainly because the economy is undergoing a period of adjustment and transformation. Despite the difficulties and downward pressure, China is still on a solid footing and its GDP growth rate remains relatively fast among the world's major economies. 

If anything, China's consistent economic performance over the years is the best proof that it has the ability to transform its economy while maintaining growth momentum.

During China's two sessions, much attention is often paid to the country's GDP growth target. However, it is crucial to look beyond mere numbers and understand the implications of new policies and measures to be implemented by the Chinese government to address economic challenges. Because the policy direction not only promises positive influence on China's economic prospects, but also presents opportunities in the country's future development.

The Chinese economy is resilient, has huge potential and vitality and its growth momentum will continue to strengthen and lead to a bright future, according to a spokesperson for the Second Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Economic issues have been a focal point for political advisors ahead of the gathering, and it is the opinion of all political advisors that in 2023 the Chinese economy withstood the external pressure and overcome internal difficulties, and the economy has been on a general recovery track, according to Liu Jieyi, spokesperson for the second session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee.

There is a good foundation and favorable conditions for promoting high-quality development and the long-term positive economic trend will continue to be consolidated and strengthened, Liu said, responding to a question about the current status of the Chinese economy.

Solid progress has been made in achieving major social and economic growth targets, high-quality development and Chinese way of modernization in 2023, Liu said.

The CPPCC held quarterly seminars on the country's macroeconomic situation and in-depth consultations on the stable operation of the overall economy, with topics ranging from fiscal, monetary, employment and headline economic policies, and provide suggestions and strategies to stabilize market expectations and boost investor confidence, according to Liu.

Biweekly consultations meetings were held on fostering the high-quality development across the financial sector and promote the stable and sound development of the property sector and field trips were made to promote the high-quality development of the private economy, strengthen the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and improve the resilience and safety level of the industrial and supply chains.

The CPPCC also arranged study trips to small and medium-sized banks to help tackle the risks of smaller financial institutions and provide advice on implementing the task mapped by during the Central Economic Work Conference held in December.

Its suggestions on fostering new-quality productive forces were highly valued and in many cases adopted by relevant government departments, Liu said.

The second session of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC will begin on March 4.

China's economy grew 5.2 percent year-on-year in 2023, finishing above last year's official GDP target of around 5 percent, and underscoring the resilience and potential of the Chinese economy in the post-COVID-19 era.

Escalating US trade protectionism, and its behavior of politicizing economic issues and erecting more trade barriers to affect fair competition, will only harm the development of its own auto industry in the long run, He Yadong, a spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), said on Thursday.

Chinese cars are popular in the global market because of their innovative features and high quality rather than alleged low-price dumping, He said, responding to a question over media reports saying that the Alliance for American Manufacturing had asked the US government to block the import of low-cost Chinese automobiles and auto parts from Mexico.

In addition, a Reuters report said on Wednesday that Republican US Senator Josh Hawley has introduced legislation to hike tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports amid so-called concerns about the potential competitive impact on American car companies.

In recent years, the US side has erected barriers to thwart Chinese car imports, like levying additional tariffs, excluding Chinese car brands from US government procurement and implementing discriminatory subsidy policies, He said.

While the US erects barriers to hinder Chinese carmakers, China is always open to carmakers from across the world, He said. 

US carmakers have fully enjoyed the dividends of China's huge market, with the sales volume of American brands far outpacing Chinese brands in the US. Protectionism by the US will only hinder its own auto industry's development in the long run, He said.

The MOFCOM spokesperson urged the US to respect the rules of the market economy and the principle of fair competition while correcting its non-market practices in order to build a fair environment for the long-term development of the auto industry.

The EU has also stepped up trade protectionism against Chinese automobiles, and recently, the EU's antitrust regulator launched an investigation into Chinese trainmaker CRRC Qingdao Sifang Locomotive, a subsidiary of CRRC Corp, the world's biggest producer of rolling stock.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, told the Global Times that the protectionist moves of the US and EU violate the WTO principle of fairness, and robust exports of Chinese new-energy vehicles (NEVs) reflect the strong international competitiveness of China's industry chains rather than so-called subsidies.

In China, the subsidy granted to NEVs was completely phased out as of the end of 2022. In order to maintain fair competition, provinces across China were required to stop subsidies for NEVs starting from 2018, and subsequently, national subsidies were phased out in an orderly fashion, Cui said.

Cui is positive about the development of China's NEV sector on the back of its strong innovation capability, complete manufacturing system and strong supply chains.

China's vehicle exports surged 57.9 percent year-on-year to a record of 4.91 million in 2023 as the country's automakers expanded their presence overseas, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

China-US economic and trade cooperation is a stabilizing force in bilateral relations. The Chinese side is willing to join hands with the US to implement the important consensus reached at the San Francisco meeting between the two heads of state to jointly promote the steady and healthy development of China-US economic and trade relations, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said when meeting with a US Chamber of Commerce delegation led by the chamber's President and CEO Suzanne Clark in Beijing on Tuesday.

China will unswervingly promote high-level opening-up and it is hoped that member companies of the US Chamber of Commerce will continue to be deeply rooted in the Chinese market and achieve win-win development, Wang said.

German auto giant Volkswagen Group has signed an agreement with Xpeng, a Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker to co-develop new EV models tailored for Chinese market, where broad consumers are embracing clean, environment-friendly cars.

The two parties agreed to commence strategic tech collaboration, bundling their respective strengths to explore the dynamic Chinese market, and will co-develop two intelligent internet-connected vehicles tailored for Chinese consumers, according to a statement sent from Volkswagen Group to the Global Times on Thursday. 

The agreement includes the joint purchase of vehicle equipment and auto parts, in addition to the use of innovative technologies in auto design and engineering.

The first two EV models are scheduled to hit the road in 2026, with one planned to be a sport utility vehicle, Volkswagen said. 

Ralf Brandstätter, a board member of Volkswagen AG for China region, said China is the world's largest and fastest-growing EV market, noting that the partnership with XPeng increases economic competitiveness of vehicle production in a price sensitive market environment.

He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of XPeng, said the company will provide Chinese consumers with the best EV products combining Volkswagen's vehicle making and engineering capability and XPeng's smart EV technology. 

In December 2023, Volkswagen completed the acquisition of shares amounting to 4.99 per cent of the total issued and outstanding share capital in XPeng, following the announcement of the partnership in July 2023.

Another Chinese EV maker Nio in December last year signed a pact for an investment of $2.2 billion with Abu Dhabi-based CYVN Holding. And, Dutch automaker Stellantis NV also announced in October 2023 to invest 1.5 billion euros to acquire approximately 20 percent of China's EV start-up Leapmotor, underlining the advantage and competitiveness of China's EV manufacturing.

At the end of 2023, China’s population was 1.4097 billion, a decrease of 2.08 million from the previous year, with urban permanent residents totaling 932.67 million. The annual new births reached 9.02 million, while deaths hit 11.1 million, resulting in a natural growth rate of -1.48‰: official statistics

Saturday marks China's traditional Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the first lunar month of the Year of the Dragon. On the day that concludes the two-week-celebration of the Chinese New Year, the nation's consumption performance is set to prolong the buying fever seen in the Spring Festival holidays.

The consumption vitality at the beginning of the year across sectors such as retail, tourism and entertainment underscored the recovery of the national economy, experts noted, and the positive result will be reflected in the official statistics at the end of the first quarter of 2024.

A Beijing resident surnamed Huo told the Global Times on Friday that her family saw long queues at stores to buy yuanxiao, a festive sweet-favored glutinous rice ball, to celebrate the Lantern Festival.

"Due to the extremely high demand for yuanxiao around the festival, some popular stores in Beijing sold out their daily inventory in just one morning," said a Beijing resident surnamed Li, noting that there were a lot of customers queuing in front of the store from early morning.

A staff member from a food store in Beijing said that the daily sales volume of yuanxiao reached 10,000 to 15,000 kilograms in recent days. The largest sales volume reached 40,000 kilograms and customers had to wait in line for 40 minutes, local media outlet Beijing Business Today reported.

As the Lantern Festival is not a holiday but falls on a weekend, catering and entertainment sectors are expected to receive large number of consumers for gatherings of family and friends, Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Friday.

Online retail platform Meituan told the Global Times that as of Wednesday, the number of restaurants launching yuanxiao-themed set menus increased by 55 percent week-on-week, and the volume of related orders surged by over 165 percent.

"The surging pre-order volume for restaurants, as well as the high customer volume at cinemas and shopping malls across the country, proves that national consumption is still running at a high level," said Zhang.

During the eight-day Spring Festival holidays, China witnessed record figures for domestic travel and spending, with both figures largely exceeding those of the same period in 2019 before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on February 18, a total of 474 million domestic trips were made during the eight-day holiday, up 34.3 percent year-on-year, and total domestic tourism spending jumped by 47.3 percent year-on-year to about 632.69 billion yuan ($87.91 billion).

Multiple travel hubs, including the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Xishuangbanna Railway Station in Southwest China's Yunnan Province all reported new record on daily passenger volume during the holidays.

China's total box office also reached an 8.034-billion-yuan record during the holiday, according to box office tracker Dengta. Notably, the average film ticket price fell below 50 yuan from the 52.3 yuan in the 2023 Spring Festival holidays, indicating that more people were willing to spend money on the entertainment sector.

As the Spring Festival holidays in 2023 and 2024 fall in January and February respectively due to the lunar calendar, some year-on-year data may not be useful as a reference, Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade told the Global Times on Friday, while noting that the economic operation data for the first quarter of 2024 will see growth based on the current momentum and will provide a precise projection for China's economy operations.

The spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) He Yadong said in a regular press conference held on Thursday that China has seen a boom in consumption during the Spring Festival holidays, making a good start to 2024. The MOFCOM vowed to further organize a series of consumption promotion activities and fully implement measures to expand consumption.

"Consumption is set to contribute more to economic growth in the first quarter of 2024 thanks to a series of festivals, as we can see the consumer price is driven up by social consumption demand, and the CPI and PPI of the first quarter of 2024 will record upsurges," said Li.

Apple's long-awaited mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, is a hot topic in the tech world ahead of its coming debut at the US Apple Store on February 2. Extensive media attention has been drawn to the complex supply chain behind the Vision Pro hardware, with many saying that China's supply chain plays a significant role in its manufacturing. Some industry insiders claim that Chinese mainland companies account for about 60 percent of the supply chain.

Some Western media outlets, which habitually take a biased view of China, have recently published articles suggesting that Apple is likely to move a massive chunk of its production capacity from China to India. It is undeniable that China's labor costs have risen, leading to supply chain restructuring. However, some Westerners tend to exaggerate the risks faced by China's manufacturing industry and deliberately ignore its positive aspects.

Publicly available information indicates that China plays an irreplaceable role in the production of Apple's most advanced products, such as Vision Pro. Apple has described Vision Pro as a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world. It showcases Apple's latest generation technology.

Although the West has been hyping global manufacturers' reduced dependence on China, it's indisputable that China's manufacturing capacity has still provided strong support for Western corporations, including Apple.

Apple has a big year ahead for new products, but it also faces challenges. The Vision Pro headset is Apple's first new product category since it launched its Apple Watch series in 2015. However, analysts do not expect Apple to generate significant revenue from the Vision Pro, at least in the short term, due to its high price that may deter many potential customers.

As reported, the Vision Pro starts at $3,499 with 256GB of storage, while the 512GB model is priced at $3,699 and the most-spacious 1TB version is priced at $3,899. Whether the Vision Pro's prices will fall after going into mass production will be the key to capturing more market share, especially in China and other developing markets. Many types of smart glasses have been launched in the Chinese market, and most of them are significantly cheaper than Apple's Vision Pro.

If Apple can effectively utilize China's manufacturing advantages and further collaborate with China's supply chain, its competitiveness in mixed-reality headsets will be strengthened. It's highly likely that China's well-established industry chain could help Apple reduce manufacturing costs for its Vision Pro. 

It is precisely because of such abundant cooperation opportunities that shares of some mixed-reality companies in the A-share market experienced a surge in recent trading after pre-orders for Apple's Vision Pro began on January 19.

Apple's development in the Chinese market and the upgrading of China's manufacturing industry are mutually beneficial. While Apple enjoys the advantages of Chinese manufacturing and its market, it could also bring opportunities for the upgrading of China's manufacturing industry. 

Chinese supply chain companies are favored by Apple due to their flexibility and strength. During the development of prototypes for the Vision Pro headset, they have been able to meet Apple's innovative demands, according to media reports. 

Through collaborating with Apple to develop innovative products, the quality and efficiency of China's manufacturing industry upgrading will undoubtedly be greatly enhanced. Apple can stimulate innovation in the Chinese supply chain by meeting the market demand for innovative products, accelerating its innovation and upgrading, and promoting industrial upgrading and transformation. This cooperative relationship will bring more development opportunities and competitive advantages for China's manufacturing industry.

The vast and dynamic market, strong manufacturing industry foundation and continuous innovation momentum in China are compelling reasons for Apple or any foreign company to embrace production in China to achieve sustainable growth.

The New York Times wrote in an article entitled "How China Has Added to Its Influence Over the iPhone" in September 2022 that "the critical work provided by China reflects the country's advancements over the past decade and a new level of involvement for Chinese engineers in the development of iPhones." 

For Apple's ambition to develop innovative products and win future markets, it is essential to embrace the accelerated upgrading of Chinese manufacturing.