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Chinese companies are winning the Global South
Their expansion abroad holds important lessons for Western incumbents.
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Chinese firms are now at the cutting-edge of EVs and batteries, precisely the sorts of industries rich-world governments coddle at home.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The Economist
Since the end of the Cold War, the rich world’s corporate giants have been the dominant force in global commerce. Today, consumers and workers in almost every country are touched in some way by the world-spanning operations of multinational firms from America, Europe and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
These leviathans are now under threat, as Chinese firms in industries from cars to clothing expand abroad with startling speed. A new commercial contest has begun. Its battleground is neither China nor the rich world, but the fast-growing economies of the Global South.
