The year was 1997, as the Asian financial crisis swept across the globe, sending markets into turmoil. That year, Zhou Qunfei chose to expand against the trend, embarking on her entrepreneurial "Long March" in glass from a simple workshop in Shenzhen's Bao'an District. Also in that same year, Jia Shaoqian, a fresh graduate from the Economic Law Department of Qingdao University, stepped through the doors of Hisense as a campus recruit, formally joining the tide of industrial enterprise.
Through nearly three decades of trials and tribulations, by May 2026, Zhou Qunfei and Jia Shaoqian found themselves seated together at the technology head table of a state banquet in Beijing. Around this globally watched roundtable were gathered tech titans like Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk, alongside stalwarts of Chinese industry such as Lu Weiding of Wanxiang Group and Cao Hui of Fuyao Glass.
Zhou Qunfei, Jia Shaoqian, and the other two Chinese entrepreneurs present are all from the post-70s generation, of similar age. Without exception, the enterprises they lead are focused on manufacturing. While products from Apple and Tesla captivated the world, the reach of intelligent Chinese manufacturing had also penetrated commanding heights: Fuyao Glass is installed in Tesla vehicles; Hisense's smart home appliances have successfully entered the U.S. high-end market with unit prices reaching up to $25,000, and its automotive compressor business ranks second globally, supplying leading new energy vehicle manufacturers worldwide.
Particularly notable is Hisense's smart energy business, which serves the zero-carbon power supply project for the Maldives islands, and its commercial display services for a national-level education and livelihood project in Indonesia, equipping 300,000 local schools with educational interactive large screens—the world's largest single interactive panel project.
These Chinese manufacturing enterprises have earned their place at the global technology core table through solid technological innovation, a robust manufacturing foundation, a determined commitment to global integration, and an entrepreneurial spirit that is "always on the road." They embody the common traits of Chinese entrepreneurs.
1. Adherence to Technology Jensen Huang's decades-long dedication to the GPU track, leading NVIDIA to the pinnacle of global market value, has become legendary. Seated beside him, Jia Shaoqian leads Hisense on a steadfast journey down another, less-publicized path: "making chips."
Twenty-six years ago, when China's TV industry suffered from a lack of core chips and displays, Hisense established the strategy that "without its own chips, it would forever be a second-tier manufacturer." This "technological pilgrimage," measured in decades, allowed Hisense to achieve a critical breakthrough in display chip technology, positioning it to reap the benefits of its own AI era.
"Having worked in manufacturing for many years, my profound understanding is that everything depends on 'innovation'," Jia Shaoqian stated this past March. He introduced that Hisense has globally launched the AI light-color co-control chip and backlight chip. These two chips enabled Hisense to pioneer three-dimensional color control display technology worldwide, "solving the industry's long-standing challenge of light-color co-control, allowing our products to achieve mass production over a year ahead of foreign competitors."
This deep-seated chip capability fundamentally represents a company's power to define products and pricing on the international stage. Data provides the most direct evidence: in 2025, sales of Hisense TVs and refrigerators priced above $1,000 grew by over 30% year-on-year; in Europe, its high-end large-screen refrigerators priced at 2,999 euros have gained widespread recognition.
At the FIFA World Cup 2026 hosted across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Hisense's RGB-Mini LED TVs will be directly installed in the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) center. Supported by its self-developed chip technology, they will assist in making precise calls on the pitch.
Lu Weiding, at the same table steering Wanxiang Group, similarly integrates technology and industry with precision, adhering to the strategic positioning of "technological innovation as the engine, industrial enterprise as the vanguard." This pragmatic approach is a typical microcosm of the transformation within Chinese manufacturing.
2. Industrial Transformation Entrepreneurs can only continuously navigate cycles and achieve leapfrog growth by keenly capturing the tides of the times and grounding technology in the right industrial vehicles.
Zhou Qunfei was not content with merely being an "Apple supply chain" company. Leveraging its deep technological moat accumulated in the field of precision manufacturing, Lens Technology has in recent years increased its focus on three strategic emerging industries: embodied AI, AI servers, and commercial aerospace. The aim is to reshape the company's product portfolio through a structural upgrade over 3 to 5 years.
Hisense Group, with revenue surpassing the 200 billion yuan mark, is also persistently advancing deep-level industrial transformation. "Industrial structure adjustment, for Hisense, is a bowl of rice in the short term, but a matter of life and death in the long run," Jia Shaoqian has repeatedly emphasized internally, noting that industrial upgrading and structural adjustment have accompanied every step of Hisense's development.
Hisense has maintained sufficient strategic patience, continuously nurturing hard-tech industries that require enduring "cold bench" periods. Today, Hisense's business has long transcended traditional home appliances, evolving into a diversified growth "pattern" spanning six core industries including semiconductors, smart energy, and automotive electronics. Each of these industries holds significant growth potential.
Amid the global wave of energy structure transformation, clean energy and smart energy services are becoming a new blue ocean in a trillion-level market. Hisense's smart energy industry has fully established a complete industrial chain encompassing "upstream core components — midstream equipment manufacturing — downstream full-scenario solutions." Its business covers over 60 countries and regions across Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America, with products and solutions applied in projects such as the Palace Museum in Beijing, Beijing Daxing International Airport, the National Xi'an Data Center, the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the zero-carbon power supply project for the Maldives islands.
As global AI computing power enters an explosive growth phase, Hisense provides the most critical optical communication products for AI computing power networks, being one of the few companies globally with the capability for R&D and mass production of optical modules and optical chips.
Many may also be unaware that Sanden, controlled by Hisense, is a leading global supplier of automotive air conditioning compressors and thermal management systems, operating in 22 countries and regions including China, the United States, and Japan.
This industrial adjustment is not about chasing trends but stems from rational choices made after calm consideration. Jia Shaoqian has stated that for a company like Hisense, which aspires to be a world-class enterprise and brand, it must break free from the quagmire of low-price, low-level competition, insist on pursuing industrial high-end and high-end industries, choose its own speed on its own track, and not be led astray by other players.
3. Determined Global Expansion For Chinese enterprises to firmly hold their place at the global technology roundtable, they require both the "depth" of technology and the "breadth" of globalization.
"Global expansion is a key measure to solve development challenges and expand growth space," summarized Cao Hui, Chairman of Fuyao Glass. The same global vision has also opened up an extremely broad strategic hinterland for Hisense.
Starting from the establishment of Hisense South Africa in 1996, Hisense's globalization journey has now reached a full 30 years. In a speech, Jia Shaoqian shared from his own experience, having visited numerous multinational corporations intensively in countries like the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Through this process, he witnessed Hisense's products, quality, and brand gradually taking root locally, further solidifying the direction for Hisense's long-term efforts over the next 5 to 10 years.
"The deeper the exchanges, the more we understand, the more unwavering our confidence in globalization becomes," Jia Shaoqian has mentioned multiple times, stating that Hisense will more resolutely go global, more actively embrace changes in the world, persist in building its own brand, and demonstrate the strength of Chinese brands to the world.
Today, Hisense has ranked among the top ten globalized Chinese brands for nine consecutive years, with overseas revenue accounting for as high as 49.3%, achieving a leap from a "Chinese manufacturing enterprise" to a "global multinational technology group."
To some extent, the presence of these Chinese entrepreneurs at the banquet signifies not only recognition of their corporate strength but also respect for market logic—those who steadfastly engage in industrial enterprise earn the right to sit at this roundtable.
4. Entrepreneurial Spirit, Always on the Road This confidence in actively integrating into global development extends far beyond "exchanges at the dining table."
A thought-provoking detail: on the evening of May 14th, Jia Shaoqian was still in Beijing hosting a dinner for representatives of the American business community; the next day, he traveled to the Southern Hemisphere to reach a strategic agreement with Indonesia; by the 19th, he had signed a strategic cooperation with Timor-Leste to jointly advance digitalization and sustainable development.
True entrepreneurial spirit is always on the road. In this era filled with uncertainty, these Chinese manufacturing operations, running day and night in workshops and overseas factories, represent the most resilient foundation.
There is a view that in China's real economic landscape, the much-watched internet industry actually occupies only a small portion. Beyond the spotlight of media attention lies a group of companies with even larger scale and deeper foundations, which are equally vital forces supporting the Chinese economy. However, relative to the output value they contribute, the employment they absorb, and their influence in the global supply chain, the volume of media coverage and the depth of storytelling about them fall far short of their deserved status.
These low-key giants are the backbone of Chinese manufacturing. Today, as they finally have the opportunity to sit around the same roundtable, we can clearly see: those gathered around this table represent the new positioning of Chinese manufacturing within the global coordinates.
Comments