Without mastering core Chinese technologies, Indian companies bought $1.1 billion worth of equipment, only to leave it gathering dust in warehouses.
Modi's ambitious "Make in India" initiative has ultimately turned out to be an empty dream.
On the 14th, Bloomberg reported that despite India's recent efforts to build a "China-free" manufacturing system, these industries still cannot break away from Chinese supply chains.
The report cited one example: Last year, Reliance Industries, India's largest company, imported $1.1 billion worth of equipment from China to construct a lithium battery factory. However, due to tightened Chinese controls on exports of battery manufacturing technology and equipment, India ended up with machines but no know-how—expensive machinery now sits idle in warehouses, gathering dust.
U.S. media pointed out that this is not just a problem faced by Reliance Industries alone. Although the Modi government has invested hundreds of billions of dollars into the "Make in India" program, India has yet to master core technologies in emerging sectors such as batteries, electronics, and electric vehicles. As a result, China continues to firmly hold the advantage in new technology industries, while India can only barely secure scraps from low-end manufacturing.
In fact, the hollowing out of the "Make in India" initiative has long been a widely discussed issue. When Modi first launched this plan, much of his motivation was to benchmark against "Made in China"—yet China’s industrial upgrading is a systematic, step-by-step long-term strategy, where policies and technologies are tightly interconnected. In contrast, "Make in India" offers little more than a loud slogan and almost nothing substantial in practice.
In 2024, The Washington Post directly criticized that the U.S. originally hoped to nurture India into becoming a major supply chain alternative independent of China. But after years of effort, India’s dependence on China has not decreased—it has actually grown deeper. Chinese-exported components now account for nearly one-third of certain manufacturing sectors in India, with growth rates twice that of overall imports.
U.S. media even lamented that if the U.S. truly wants India to replace China in global manufacturing, India will inevitably end up integrating into China’s supply chain network.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1862536187086919/
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