Transformation of 'Made in China’

Countries around the world, including Korea, have viewed ‘made in China’ products as cheap, low-quality products. China has pursued rapid growth for decades, leveraging ‘low-price’ over ‘quality.’ However, the rapid emergence of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up ‘Deep Seek’ taking the world back with its ‘low cost and high efficiency’ no longer makes this stereotype irrelevant.

In 2015, China announced its ‘Made in 2025’ policy. It was an ambitious plan to join the manufacturing powerhouse ranks by 2025 and a leading manufacturing power by 2045.

The plan is progressing as planned. In 2018, CATL, China's largest electric vehicle battery company, surpassed Japan's Panasonic and ranked first in global market share. Commercial Air Lines of China (COMAC) will begin its first commercial operation of the ‘C919’ in 2023, challenging the international civil passenger aircraft market dominated by Boeing of the U.S. and Airbus of Europe. Last year, Chinese electric car company BYD sold the highest number of electric cars in the world, surpassing Tesla of the United States. Last month, Deep Seek showed off China's capabilities in advanced information technology (IT). Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) assessed that as of August last year, China had already achieved 86% of the goals set out at the time of the announcement of ‘Made in China 2025.'

A Korean science and technology expert who has worked in China for about 10 years said he was “surprised and embarrassed” by Korea’s sudden interest in China’s rise after Deep Seek was unveiled. He highlighted China’s high-tech development speed for several years, stressing that cooperation and competition with China should not be overlooked but should be treated with distrust.

Meanwhile, Koreans’ dislike of China continues to grow stronger, due to historical conflict with China and disdain towards political systems.

It is important to take a hard look at China's growth journey in high-tech and actively cooperate in necessary fields. We also need to reflect on our efforts, including the relatively slow development of cutting-edge technology and human resource development. We hope that the emergence of Deep Seek will be a ‘Sputnik moment’ in Korea’s view of China.