On September 9, 2026, the 20th anniversary celebration of the Automotive Talent Committee of the China Talent Research Society was held. Fu Yuwu, Yang Hong, and others discussed supply chain globalization: technology windows such as electrical/electronic architecture, smart cockpits, and intelligent driving are opening opportunities for Chinese suppliers, but winning orders is only admission. Building plants, R&D, ESG compliance, and cross-cultural system capabilities determine whether they can take root, while interdisciplinary talent ultimately determines how far they can go.

On September 9, 2026, the 20th anniversary celebration of the Automotive Talent Committee of the China Talent Research Society was held. Fu Yuwu, former chairman of the China Society of Automotive Engineers and the Automotive Talent Committee, and Yang Hong, founder, chairman, and president of Hangsheng Electronics, among others, discussed the overseas path and talent support for China's automotive supply chain. A basic judgment was: China's supply chain already has the capability to take products global, but between export and deep cultivation, there remain three barriers: systems, compliance, and talent.

1. Technology Window: Standing at the Same Starting Line Again on a New Track

Yang Hong attributed the opportunity for supply chain globalization to a shift in technology cycles. "The automobile is gradually moving from being dominated by mechanical systems in the past to being jointly defined by electrical/electronic architecture, software, and AI." In traditional mechanical fields, international Tier 1 suppliers such as Bosch, Continental, and Denso have accumulated barriers over decades; in emerging fields such as automotive electronics, smart cockpits, and intelligent driving, Chinese companies are in the same technology iteration cycle as them.

China's market validation conditions are hard to replicate. A huge sales base and extremely fast iteration pace allow local suppliers to repeatedly validate and quickly correct in real-world scenarios. A smart cockpit system may iterate one version in China in six months or even less, while overseas markets take longer. This efficiency gap ultimately translates into product competitiveness. Bethel's EMB brake-by-wire, CATL's power batteries, and Horizon Robotics' intelligent driving chips are all products that grew out of this window. What the technology window provides is a ticket to "go global."

2. Going Out: Orders Are Only Market Entry

Hangsheng's own path is a sample: when it was founded in 1993, it was engaged in processing with supplied materials, with annual revenue of RMB 2.38 million; after strengthening forward R&D capabilities and system competitiveness, it reached annual revenue of RMB 1 billion in its first decade; in 2007, it obtained the first state-recognized enterprise technology center in the automotive electronics field. Yang Hong also introduced high-reliability standards from the aviation field into automotive electronics products, gradually establishing a quality system.

At this stage, overseas markets have recognized the products and efficiency of China's supply chain. International automakers such as BMW and Tesla are actively seeking cooperation, and even pulling Chinese companies to go global in reverse. But winning overseas orders only solves the problem of market entry; the race has just begun.

3. Going In: The Systemic Test of Plant Building, R&D, and ESG

Yang Hong summed up corporate internationalization into three stages: "going out" means selling products overseas; "going in" means building local plants and R&D centers and establishing long-term relationships with local customers, suppliers, and employees; "going up" means forming a global brand and long-term operating capability. The difficulty increases stage by stage.

At the product export stage, companies mainly face customer demand, price, and delivery; after a plant is established, they face a complete set of local operating rules. Fu Yuwu particularly reminded that companies going global must "seriously study ESG"—labor regulations, environmental standards, employee management, supplier selection, and quality after-sales service will all enter daily operations. They must understand local rules, respect local culture, and assume corresponding social responsibilities; otherwise, they may face risks in quality, labor law, environmental protection, and other areas.

Going out depends on product strength; going in depends on system capability. A product can pass overseas customer certification, but whether it can be continuously procured depends on the reliability and stability of R&D, production, and delivery. This capability cannot be quickly acquired through a single overseas plant; it must be accumulated market by market, transforming capabilities formed in China into a management approach that can operate stably across countries, teams, and plants. Hangsheng's globalization layout is advancing in this direction: it has manufacturing bases and R&D bases in China, R&D centers in Germany and other places overseas, and manufacturing bases in Thailand and other places.

4. Going Up: After Hard Power, Soft Power Speaks

Yang Hong proposed that by Hangsheng's 50th anniversary, it should become "China's Bosch." Bosch's competitiveness certainly includes technology, but technology is only part of it—long-term R&D, quality management, global layout, corporate culture, and sustained operations together form the underlying capabilities of a global supplier. This is precisely the lesson Chinese suppliers need to learn as they move onto the global stage.

Fu Yuwu summarized corporate competitiveness as "hard power + soft power." Technology, products, quality, and manufacturing constitute hard power and have already given China's automotive supply chain the foundation to go global; corporate culture, management, values, cooperation capability, and adaptability to different markets constitute soft power, and the latter determines how far and how long a company can go overseas.

5. Talent: Ultimately Determining How Far You Can Go

The long-term development of a company is ultimately accomplished by people. Yang Hong introduced that Hangsheng values internal training and also recruits scarce external talent, and through a "horse racing" mechanism gives young people opportunities to compete and grow in real business. After entering overseas markets, the talent needed is no longer just R&D engineers and manufacturing experts, but interdisciplinary talent: those doing R&D must understand global customer needs, those in management must be able to handle cross-cultural teams, and those responsible for overseas business must understand products, customers, and local rules at the same time.

AI is also changing how companies work internally. Yang Hong mentioned that AI has already affected some positions at Hangsheng, by about 10% to 20%, and this change is still gradually taking place. Companies need to reduce repetitive work while retraining employees so that human capabilities shift to higher-value links. As technologies such as electrical/electronic architecture, central computing platforms, intelligent driving, AI, chips, and communications continue to converge, the talent structure changes accordingly, and people who can collaborate across disciplines and cultures will become even scarcer.

6. Conclusion

The globalization of China's automotive supply chain is moving from product output to capability output. Technology windows provide opportunities, systems and compliance determine whether it can take root, and talent determines how far it can ultimately go. For the industry, the measure of globalization quality may no longer be just export scale, but the long-term operating quality of overseas R&D centers, manufacturing bases, and local teams.