{"id":427998,"date":"2026-01-21T15:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427998\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:45:17","slug":"chinas-new-global-playbook-from-exporter-to-investor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427998\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s new global playbook \u2014from exporter to investor"},"content":{"rendered":"

This report is from this week’s CNBC’s The China Connection newsletter, which brings you insights and analysis on what’s driving the world’s second-largest economy. You can subscribe\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The big story<\/p>\n

China is moving from global exporter to investor, right into regions the U.S. is eyeing.<\/p>\n

As U.S. President Donald Trump this year intensified U.S. influence on Venezuela, Iran and Greenland, one of the immediate concerns on the Chinese side was its local investments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Davos on Tuesday, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng urged global leaders to provide a fair and predictable environment for Chinese businesses operating overseas.<\/p>\n

There are significant investments in factories and tech at stake. While China’s trade surplus ballooned to a record $1.2 trillion<\/a> in 2025, Beijing’s deals and contracts with countries tied to the Belt and Road<\/a> Initiative surged to new highs<\/a>. Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are key regions for the initiative, widely seen as a channel for China to build global influence.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to 2026, the Financial Times’s FDI Intelligence survey predicted China will be the largest source<\/a> of overseas direct investment in 2026, ahead of the United Arab Emirates and then India. The U.S. tied with Saudi Arabia for fourth place.<\/p>\n

The composition of that investment is also shifting. More Chinese overseas investments<\/a> are in tech and manufacturing<\/a>, partly because tariffs are pushing Chinese electric car companies to localize production abroad. <\/p>\n

A Neolix X3 vehicle rolling off the production line at a factory of Chinese autonomous delivery vehicle maker Neolix in Yancheng, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Dec. 4, 2025.<\/p>\n

Jade Gao | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Global businesses and leaders are also curious to see how China’s tech stacks up.<\/p>\n

Over the past six months, Beijing-based autonomous delivery vehicle company Neolix\u00a0has begun receiving global visitors, including logistics businesses and the French Ministry of Transportation, Will Zhao, executive president of Neolix, told me last week.<\/p>\n

“2025 was the year we started to really make this kind of contact with global potential partners,” he said, noting those partners include consultants or lawyers who work with local authorities on autonomous vehicle regulation. <\/p>\n

“A lot of countries are looking for our investment for manufacturing,” Zhao noted.<\/p>\n

Neolix obtained an operating license in the UAE<\/a> late last year and announced a strategic alliance with a Portuguese mobility company<\/a> earlier this month. Zhao said the company plans to deploy more than 10,000 autonomous delivery vehicles outside China this year and enter three new countries, ideally in Europe.<\/p>\n

Rise of Inter-Asia ‘mega theme’<\/p>\n

But Chinese companies don’t necessarily have to look far for overseas expansion.<\/p>\n

Trade within Asia is a “mega theme” for the year ahead, global investment firm KKR said in its 2026 macro outlook<\/a>. “For us at\u00a0KKR, this is a scalable, secular trend with real investment potential that spans logistics, manufacturing, consumer markets, and digital enablement.”<\/p>\n

China has increased its market share not only through exports, KKR said, but by building local operations in countries such as Vietnam.<\/p>\n

“One of the emerging benefits for the region involves the increasing frequency of countries transacting in renminbi, a trend that has gained momentum post-COVID,” the report said. <\/p>\n

The trend picked up even before Trump’s latest round of global tariffs.<\/p>\n

In 2024, 60% of Asian trade was already conducted within the region, with KKR predicting\u00a0subsequent growth of\u00a08% in the\u00a0following\u00a0few years. A major factor, the report said, is that more than 800 million millennials in the region are about to\u00a0reach an age at which they will be spending more.<\/p>\n

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and China’s Great Wall Motor (GWM) CEO Mu Feng attend the opening of the GWM automobile factory on August 15, 2025, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. <\/p>\n

China News Service | China News Service | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Underscoring the shift in global trade, Southeast Asia has become Beijing’s largest trading partner and helped propel China’s global exports to grow by 5.5% last year,\u00a0despite a 20% drop<\/a> in shipments to the U.S. due to the trade war.<\/p>\n

U.S. logistics giant FedEx is also navigating what its CEO Raj Subramaniam calls “re-globalization<\/a>,” according to his recent interview with the New York Times.<\/p>\n

In the last six months, FedEx has opened facilities in Istanbul, Bangalore and Dublin, Subramaniam said. “We’ve done different moves around Intra-Asia. A new platform in Osaka.”<\/p>\n

Such decisions don’t come lightly in a world rocked by U.S.-China tensions. Subramaniam is also chair of the U.S.-China Business Council<\/a>, which meets regularly with Chinese policymakers.<\/p>\n

The global trade shifts<\/a> also have an impact within China.<\/p>\n

In a presentation to reporters last week, Cui Shoujun, a professor at Renmin University of China’s School of International Studies, pointed out that companies are hiring more foreign relations graduates\u00a0\u2014\u00a0who just 10 years ago would have mostly headed to government jobs.<\/p>\n

If trade tensions are here to stay, Chinese companies are using human talent and factory expansion to adapt.<\/p>\n

Top TV picks on CNBC\"Canada<\/p>\n

Jeff Mahon, Director of International Business and Geopolitical Advisory at StrategyCorp, discussed the recent reset in China-Canada relations \u2013 and why Canada has been put in a position to develop a more pragmatic approach with China.<\/p>\n

\"China's<\/p>\n

Sam Radwan of Enhance International predicted a further 40% correction in China’s real estate market by 2030 and said it was a systemic issue.<\/p>\n

\"China<\/p>\n

Goldman Sachs’ Hui Shan said that while China has made progress diversifying exports, shifting its economy from property and infrastructure toward consumption and services requires bolder policy action.<\/p>\n

Need to knowIn the markets<\/p>\n

China markets rose Wednesday against a subdued regional backdrop as investors monitored geopolitical tensions following fresh tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump tied to Greenland.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong’s\u00a0Hang Seng Index<\/a>\u00a0rose over 0.3%,\u00a0putting its year-to-date gains at 3.7%.<\/p>\n

Mainland’s\u00a0China\u00a0CSI 300 closed nearly flat, up 0.09%,\u00a0and is 2.01% higher for the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon\"hide<\/p>\n

The performance of the Shanghai Composite over the past year.<\/p>\n

Coming up<\/p>\n

Jan. 19-22: Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng to visit Switzerland and attend the World Economic Forum at Davos<\/p>\n

Jan. 27: Industrial profits for December<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This report is from this week’s CNBC’s The China Connection newsletter, which brings you insights and analysis on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,174,512,32312,2490,164,28245,10835,1209,179811,576,1055,17263],"class_list":["post-427998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-china","tag-china-government","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-foreign-policy","tag-greenland","tag-india","tag-inside-china","tag-trade","tag-united-states","tag-world-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}