China is coming. So what? China’s rise to automotive superpower

By Stefan Pabeschitz

Krampus has had his day, but we still need something to fear—because we haven’t been diligent and well-behaved enough. So instead of the rod in the window, we now have the exemplary Chinese standing in the doorway. Don’t worry—they’ll learn, too.

Let’s admit it: we dropped the ball. The whole China thing, and the car part in particular. All it would have taken was a closer look. Back in 1958, the big bang year of the Chinese automotive industry, it took them exactly eleven months to produce their first drivable car after taking measurements from an imported Simca. Four of those days were spent on the design, three more to copy and fit a four-cylinder Mercedes engine, and then another week for the gearbox. Officially, this is called reverse engineering—the technical term for stealing. Or, if you prefer, just copying. “As long as it’s done intelligently,” said the great Chairman. He didn’t appreciate dissent.

The basic setup between the West and China hasn’t changed for millennia. They were always far more numerous than us, diligent, skilled, and above all mostly united—the sunny side of a long-lasting centralized power. The only difference now is that we’re no longer irrelevant to them. As a market where they can buy—companies, brands—and at the same time sell us all kinds of goods, including now cars, we fit perfectly. Six hundred million long-nosed consumers with money to spend on things they no longer want to make themselves. If there’s a land of plenty in the Chinese treasure trove of legends, it’s 21st-century Europe.

The Western image of China has traditionally been shaped by two factors: misunderstanding and superstition. Even when Marco Polo published his rather florid travel accounts, people had no problem believing his mentions of dragons and other mythical creatures. Fireworks and paper money, however, they refused to believe. Which was really unfortunate, since gunpowder and cash turned out to be the main ingredients for building a world power. Even the not-so-delicate USA now likes to pick up a detail or two from China. The Wall, for example: Trump would also like to build one, because the original worked so well—after all, he noticed that there are practically no Mexicans in China.

We, on the other hand, have been arguing for 800 years about the origins of pasta—did it come with Polo from China, or was it actually invented by a farmer in the Abruzzi? Here we see another fundamental trait of Europeans: glorifying the trivial. We get passionately tangled up in things that truly don’t matter, while the bigger picture rolls by unattended. Parallels in the automotive world are no coincidence: Is the new Alfa Romeo still a true Alfa? Are BMW’s vertical kidneys progress or regression? Can the Porsche 911 become a hybrid? While we debate such questions, the Chinese are buying up Volvo, Rover, MG, and Smart, crossing into Europe with an estimated dozen of their own brands, and if they ever turn off the electronics tap, we’ll be driving in everyday life like in the Ennstal Classic—carburetors and contact breakers, because nothing else will be left.

That, however, doesn’t seem to bother us much. We’d rather, it feels, go on strike—over something, anything. The 32-hour workweek, for example, would drive a good Chinese worker into utter despair—by Wednesday afternoon, he’d be done and have no idea what to do with the rest of the week—except maybe take a second job. Most people there spend their evenings after a twelve-hour workday at the computer. But not gaming—studying. Without a degree, or even just a diploma, you’re not competitive in the job market.

Here, job seekers mumble about “life-work balance” without realizing it’s really at best a work-life balance. Rumor has it that the Chinese words for life and work are identical, which makes finding philosophical balance a lot simpler. “Find something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” is a very wise motto, by the way from Confucius. “And if not, then at least do what you do with pleasure,” the great Chairman would probably have added pragmatically. And that’s just the way it is.

Some cynical voices claim we’re currently witnessing a remake of the late Antiquity. We—Europe—play Greece: culture-givers, otherwise insignificant. America takes the role of Rome—still master of the world, but deeply divided and teetering on the edge of collapse. The next nation is already at the starting line to take over—but it’s no longer unwashed Germans with spear and shield, but polished Chinese with Harvard degrees.

So that’s it? It was wonderful, we’re glad, and goodbye? Come on—sure, the present may be mediocre and the future uncertain. But we have a hefty past, and it’s not just a few prettily painted vases and 10,000 boring terracotta soldiers. We can drive around in it, for example through the last paradise, or on any beautiful day the climate change gods grant us. Feeling the wind in our hair, letting our ear canals be massaged by exhaust notes, and inhaling the scent of Super 100—pure octane hedonism.

We invented it. The car itself, yes, but even more important: the enjoyment all around it. And today? All this efficiency-driven functionality, sterile A-to-B pragmatism—who messed that up, anyway? Don’t forget the enforced tedium of countless driver-assistance systems—in that magnitude, sensible is as good as dead, just earlier. The race to offer even more of them is going in the wrong direction—soon, nobody will want to buy a new car because of it.

China wants to make everything perfect. But perfection isn’t necessarily better—a subtle distinction they still need to learn. “Perfection is paralysis,” Winston Churchill once observed, and he ought to know—after all, he won a world war with plenty of improvisation and a constant whiskey buzz. Apparently, this insight takes time to sink in in China. Oldtimers have only been allowed to be imported into the People’s Republic for the past two years. The hype that was expected hasn’t happened—old cars barely interest anyone there. Perhaps the Chinese would enjoy it more to rebuild them, like Hallstatt. Then we’d finally have Alfa Romeo Giulias without clunky gearboxes, Triumph Spitfires that don’t leak oil, and Citroën DSs with functioning hydraulics.

But do we want that? Not really. We love the imperfect; the most hopeless garage projects are our favorites. And when we roll out in those cars, our hearts swell with joy if they cough and splutter back to life. A taste for “noble junk” is at least an effective antidote to the pervasive obsession with perfection. Perhaps oldtimers should be available on prescription—they help with aging ailments and are far more enjoyable than prime-time commercials featuring chirpy seniors pitching stool softeners, adult diapers, and fungal remedies. As pain therapy, they’re unbeatable—even against Europe’s swan song. And if anyone wants to explain this to an interested visitor, the Mandarin term for classic cars is 老爷车.