IIRC, Foreign companies need to have majority-owner Chinese partner entities to "own" business operations in China. So a non-Chinese car company that wants to have ownership over it's Chinese assembly line operations and sales in China needs to partner with a Chinese company (typically another automaker) that actually owns >50% of the joint subsidiary that actually makes and or sells the cars. The alternative is Apple, which owns no manufacturing and had everything produced on contract from independent manufacturers. And again, none of this involves user data. Also, both the play store and Apple iOS store's content are at the mercy of the CCP gatekeepers, so even if a person in China can buy an apple product, they experience a different app ecosystem.
I don't think there's a non-Chinese-owned company that has access to and stores user data streams, like a foreign-owned weibo or something, but I'd be curious if someone had an example.
How much do you think China makes on an iPhone? Most of the pricey parts are imported into China and just because the assembly happens in China doesn’t truth make it “made” in China.
Even if you take lower margin brands like KFC, the US interests essentially rent-seek on that brand usage.
You have to also understand that China is the economic underdog. In order to rise out of poverty they have to have some form of protectionist policies (which are not unique to China, as Japan also has heavy protectionist policies despite an already strong economy) or they’d be trampled by established foreign multinational giants.
One country is a well to-do suburban college educated kid and the other is a poor high school dropout from the inner city. Their competition in the market would not be “fair” as their starting points would be unequal.
That being said protectionist policies aren’t all good. They are a tradeoff that they chose to make and why they ended up with defective domestically produced infant baby formula, crappier internet search engines (which lead to wechat dominance), etc, whole local companies played slow catch up.
You recall incorrectly. You're describing the situation about 30 years ago, in the early stages of China's opening up. In the intervening time, restrictions have been dropped from most sectors (including the automotive sector - Tesla's Shanghai factory is a demonstration of this).
The Chinese market is open both to direct investment (FDI, which I mentioned above), and to imports of foreign goods. American companies have much greater penetration into the Chinese market than vice versa. It's blindingly obvious if you've been in both countries.
https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2154674/tesl...
China may be open to goods (ignoring the capricious enforcement of customs laws). But even politically benign services (banking, finance, insurance) cannot easily be "exported" to China. It's obviously protectionism.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/797098404/u-s-financial-servi...
It mentioned 独资。There are other companies had Chinese partners called 合资 which means joined-adventure. They are different but 独资 exist as opposed to MSM claimed.
Now I know you don't believe it. There are many people know the other side of story but they have been eventually down-voted out of HN to tell the truth. This one seems not quite offense to many HNer's beliefs so I'd like to provide some information.
It's silly to complain that the American market was open to Chinese investment, while the Chinese market used to have JV requirements. China had no capital to invest. Investment flowed entirely in one direction. It didn't matter to China that the US was theoretically open for direct investment. US companies made huge profits by investing in China, but not vice versa. Around 2014-15, Chinese investment abroad began to pick up, but the Trump administration has essentially closed the US market to Chinese investment, and Chinese FDI in the US has gone basically to zero.
Complaining about how the poor old US is getting exploited by China - with its former JV requirements - is completely out of touch with reality. American companies made enormous profits off of investment in China.
As China has developed, it has removed JV restrictions from most sectors of the economy. Whether some level of protectionism is good for developing economies is a debated topic, but the WTO allows greater leeway to developing countries. Developed countries would obviously benefit more if every developing country removed all conditions on foreign investment, but developing countries would probably suffer.
It's utterly bizarre to see people completely unaware of this clear fact. US companies are absolutely everywhere in China and make bucketload of cash in the country.
Starbucks entered the Chinese market in 1999, when there were still JV requirements in its sector. Those requirements have been removed, and Starbucks bought out its Chinese JV partner in 2017.
This is something that is often claimed, but it doesn't reflect reality.
China does not generally lock American companies out of its market. In fact, American companies have a far greater presence in the Chinese market than vice versa.
For example, take a look at the 2017 China sales figures for a few American companies: [1]
* Apple: $44.7 billion
* Intel: $14.8 billion
* Qualcomm: $14.6 billion
* Boeing: $11.9 billion
* Micron: $10.4 billion
If you walk into any mall in China, you'll see American brands everywhere. Starbucks, KFC, McDonald's, tons of fashion brands, and on and on. The basic fact underlying all of this is that for decades, foreign direct investment flowed essentially in one direction: from the US to China. That reflected the fact that the US had capital, while China had labor. It's only recently that Chinese companies have begun expanding abroad, and FDI has started to go in the opposite direction.
1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trade-war-watch-these-are-...