Europe Wants China’s EV Technology. Soh Weiming Says It Will Only Get the Factories.

The Historical Irony Europe Doesn’t Want to Hear

“So it’s like Germany and France 30 years ago. China will consider what to keep in China and what to industrialise elsewhere,” Soh told the South China Morning Post .

The reference is explicit. In the 1980s and 1990s, European carmakers entered China through mandatory joint ventures, building factories and sharing some manufacturing expertise. Beijing gained industrial jobs and production capacity, but the deepest technology — engine design, advanced engineering, proprietary software — largely stayed in Europe. Soh now sees the exact same dynamic playing out in reverse.

What Chinese Automakers Will Actually Do

Rather than handing over their most valuable intellectual property, Soh expects Chinese original equipment manufacturers to pursue a pragmatic two-track strategy :

• Build European factories to bypass tariffs and satisfy political demands. "I would foresee that Chinese OEMs will set up factories in Europe… then are you really bringing the technology out? It’s factory, it’s industrialisation" . BYD has already announced plans to locally produce all electric vehicles for the European market within three years . Dongfeng is negotiating Italian factories, and Chery has signed a Spanish manufacturing deal .
• Keep core intellectual property and research at home in China. This aligns with Beijing's broader industrial policy. As EU security analysts have noted, President Xi Jinping is determined to keep cutting-edge technologies within China, and Chinese companies "have a strong incentive to not ship their crown jewel technologies beyond the home market" .

What That Means for Europe’s Strategy

Soh's assessment suggests Europe is, in his words, "solving yesterday’s problem" . The continent may succeed in creating manufacturing jobs and securing some supply-chain investments, but it will not meaningfully close the technological gap with Chinese EV makers through mandatory joint-venture requirements. The real question for European policymakers is whether they want factory floors that depend on know-how located 8,000 kilometers away in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Hefei — and whether that arrangement offers any greater security than importing finished cars.

Europe asked for technology transfer. Soh’s read from inside the room is that it will receive industrialisation instead — a mirror image of the deal Europe itself once insisted on.