Last night, a Japanese friend told me two pieces of news, both related to Chinese manufacturing.
The first one is that Japanese cars are no longer popular in China. The sales of Japanese cars dropped by 17.61% year-on-year this year, Honda's sales dropped by 24.2%, and it has been in negative growth for 17 consecutive months. Only Toyota had a slight increase of 6.8%. Overall, the combined sales of the three companies dropped by 7% year-on-year. Japanese media have started to admit that "Chinese manufacturers have taken away market share." My friend sighed, saying that 20 years ago, there were Japanese cars everywhere on the streets of China, with Japanese car production lines being exported to China. Now, they are learning how to clear inventory.
The second piece of news is about the change in the flow of technical talents between China and Japan. Last year, Nikkei News lamented that "the direction of talent flow between China and Japan has reversed; previously, Chinese talents went to Japan for study, but now Japanese experts come to China for research." At that time, many people didn't take it seriously, but with the AI boom in China in 2025, the Japanese are realizing it too late. Japanese websites even said, "China has widely applied AI in hospitals, schools, banks, and surveillance. 'The speed of China' makes Japan look up in awe." My friend introduced that Japanese companies are now taking action, participating in the secondary development of Chinese AI technology, trying to catch up and surpass.
In fact, apart from the data published by Japanese media, as a consumer, the changes in consumption may be more convincing. More than ten years ago, if a family had a Japanese car or Japanese home appliances, it was basically the most outstanding one in the building. But now, with the comprehensive rise of domestic brands, people no longer have such competitive mentality, but rather calmly view them.
Scrapping old items for new ones is an example. This year, out of the 1.1 trillion yuan in sales, the majority came from domestic brands. On Vipshop alone, due to the national subsidy and platform discounts, the cost-effectiveness of big brands has further improved. Xiaomi, Midea, Huawei, and Haier have been bought in large quantities by young people. For a period of time, Huawei notebook sales increased by 60%. The situation of rushing to Japan to buy rice cookers and toilet seats has also disappeared. Instead, the Japanese and South Korean home appliance and beauty markets are dominated by domestic brands. My friend's feeling is that 70% of the home appliances in the Japanese market are Chinese brands, and many Japanese brands have even begun to be sold to Chinese companies.
Indeed, the development of Chinese manufacturing has been very fast in recent years, and its ability to attract fans is increasing day by day. Just like the Japanese media said, "Chinese manufacturing has arrived in Japan with a sweeping manner," and the word "sweeping" is very vivid. People always strive for higher places, and water flows downward. No wonder Japanese talents prefer to develop and conduct research in China.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1837622667907080/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.