For the last decade, or maybe two decades, China has proved that it is no doubt the biggest manufacturer in the global village. Labels with Made in China appear in every corner of the world, no matter in the developed countries, or in the developing markets. Chinese companies and Chinese government should be proud of what they have done and how soon they did it. Then, they are facing problems, like, what’s next, should we just keep being a junior, big manufacturer for ever, can we keep it this way. Apparently, the answers for these questions, would be no, of course. Then, the further questions would be: how to climb up the supply chain and change the role of China in that chain, what should we do to achieve that purpose, how can we do that.
To achieve such strategic goal to be a strong manufacturer, the priority, the concerns firstly should be changed to focusing on independent research and development. China has been a follower of manufacturing instructions from developed economies for long enough that Chinese manufacturers have thoroughly understood every detail in the production line and the rules in every deal, and, in the meantime, they actually already made some changes, improvements and developments on their own during this following.
It is time to apply their independent thinking toward developing new products, and capitalize on the value of the unique mind of each worker who has dedicated his/her youth and efforts on the assembly line over the past ten or twenty years. It is time to believe in their own wisdom and expertise in their fields, and to focus their works and dedication on something forwarding: independent research and development.
At this stage, the government would play a role of guiding, a role of encouraging every inventor in the front line on their initiative spirit and let everyone in each field know their value and pay attention to their own creation. On the macro level, the government also should focus on transformation of traditional key industries and construction of new industries, such as, new generation of information technology, intelligent manufacturing, additive manufacturing, new materials, biological medicine industries to form a batch of manufacture innovation centers, industrial technology research bases, which mainly focus on research and development of industrial basis and common key technologies, industrialization of achievements, and talent training. Standards and procedures of selection, assessing, and managing for perfecting manufacture innovation centers also need to be established.
After over thirty-year industrial development, environmentally friendly production has to be the only way for future manufacture. Therefore, the government should also pay attention on guidance on green manufacturing, to advocate technical modifications on traditional industries, such as, improvement of energy efficiency, cleaner production, water resource saving and pollution control, and cyclic utilization, to implement industrialization demonstration on energy saving, comprehensive utilization of resources, remanufacturing and low-carbon technologies, to improve the level of clean production in key areas, river basins and industries, and make solid progress in the prevention and control of pollution sources in the atmosphere, water and soil, and to make green products, green factories, green parks, green enterprise standard system, green evaluation.
For Chinese companies, learning the importance of intellectual property is the crucial point and the first step for adding value to their products. Adding “value” to the products is adding their wisdom and intelligence to improve and develop, to create and produce more improved products. Intellectual property is the true product and the true “value” of the upper chain that understanding the importance and learning to manage, utilize and earn from the intellectual property would truly mean that the Chinese companies are indeed climbing up of the chain. China has been increasing legal protection and enforcement for intellectual properties for several years, and Chinese companies are also increasingly taken advantage of the benefits offered by intellectual property to profit from research, development and innovation.
Valuing their own intellectual property, and guiding and initiating innovation would lead Chinese companies and the government to climb up the supply chain and add value to its products, in the near future.