The US will suffer the loss of future opportunities in the automobile industry if it loses the Chinese market, said Dong Yang, executive vice chairman of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) on April 6.

China and the US are complementary in their automobile cooperation which was supposed to achieve win-win results, he added.

According to Dong, the two countries have witnessed enhanced cooperation in this field in recent years, and General Motor (GM) was a good example.

The company established their own R&D center in Shanghai, and the new products manufactured thereat have been exported to South Africa. More than 30,000 units produced by GM’s joint venture in China were sold in the US in 2017.

As a result, the automobile cooperation between the two countries not only covers the Chinese market, it also helps US carmakers expand their shares in other developing countries.

Currently, GM, Ford, and Chrysler have respectively sold 4 million, 930,000, and 150,000 units in China. “Were it not because of the Chinese market, these three major car producers would have not been able to remain first-class companies,” Dong noted.

CAAM assistant secretary general Xu Haidong believes that the escalated trade friction between China and the US will definitely have direct negative impacts on US vehicle exports to China.

The market share of US vehicle brands in China is lower than that of the German and Japanese carmakers, and the US may lose this huge market after the trade war, Xu said, adding that such a situation will help the growth of local Chinese brands.

“China is the world’s largest market for new energy vehicles (NEV) and boasts the best environment and infrastructure for NEV development,” Xu noted. He predicted that the country will also be a leader in smart pilot technology developments, clarifying that losing the market means losing opportunities.