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NewsTopic · 新兴产业内卷治理3 min read·2026-10-16

Economic Daily Critiques Involution in Emerging Industries: Homogeneous Competition Squeezes Innovation, Specialized Division Needed

An Economic Daily commentary argues that emerging industries are trapped in 'involutionary' competition due to short-term political incentives and regional prisoner's dilemmas, leading to resource misallocation. The article advocates for deepening specialized division of labor within industries and products, and promoting cross-industry and cross-regional integration to correct this trend.

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2026-10-16 06:39 GMT+8

Currently, some Chinese emerging industries face a peculiar competitive dilemma: when a new trend emerges, various regions rush to launch similar projects, resulting in redundant production lines and highly homogeneous products. This pattern, officially termed "involutionary" competition, not only causes resource waste but also fundamentally constrains industrial upgrading. In an article published on October 16, 2026, Economic Daily commentator Huang Xin dissected the causes, harms, and solutions to this phenomenon, providing a clear industrial analysis framework for investors and policy observers.

The article points out that "involutionary" competition is not accidental but the result of multiple overlapping real-world factors. First, there is a tendency towards short-term political performance orientation; emerging industry projects attract high social attention and can quickly form visible results, prompting local governments to blindly follow trends. Second, regional competition falls into a "prisoner's dilemma," where locals fear missing out on industrial booms, creating a development model characterized by "grabbing projects, stacking policies, and neglecting supporting infrastructure." Additionally, positive market expectations for emerging industries easily attract capital to enter competitively, causing capacity growth to far exceed demand expansion. Finally, at stages where new technologies have not yet broken through, most enterprises can only compete within mature processes, relying on price wars to fight for existing markets.

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This competitive model has severe negative consequences. On one hand, it causes factor misallocation and shakes the foundation of industrial innovation. Enterprises deeply mired in price wars focus on grabbing market share rather than R&D investment, tending to linger in the mid-to-low end of the industrial chain for a long time. Overall industry profits are compressed, leaving enterprises with little profit accumulation and reduced ability to withstand market fluctuations. On the other hand, it disrupts regional industrial ecosystems and weakens China's global industrial competitiveness. If all regions pursue complete industrial chains and refuse to engage in supporting division of labor, inter-regional relationships shift from complementary collaboration to homogeneous competition, even leading to subsidy races. Domestic low-price competition transmitted to overseas markets disperses industrial synergy and weakens China's bargaining power and international competitiveness in global supply chains.

To address this issue, the recently issued "Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces" by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council explicitly proposed cultivating and strengthening emerging industries, deepening professional division of labor within industries and products, promoting cross-industry and cross-regional integration, and avoiding "involutionary" competition. Huang Xin believes this represents an important correction of the industrial competitive ecosystem at the top-level design level.

The article proposes key paths to solve "involution": deepening professional division of labor and promoting integration. Emerging industrial chains are long, with many links and fine categories; instead of clustering in the same link, regions should leverage their respective strengths. Deepening intra-industry division of labor allows leading enterprises to focus on core technologies and brands, outsourcing non-core links to specialized supporting enterprises; deepening intra-product division of labor breaks down research, design, manufacturing, marketing, and service links, assigned to different enterprises for each role. Thus, enterprises win through professional capabilities rather than simple low prices. Meanwhile, cross-industry integration can break industrial barriers, driving new technologies like new energy and AI to deeply integrate with traditional industries, spawning new business forms; cross-regional integration helps break local barriers, guiding optimal allocation of factors over a larger scope, forming an industrial landscape of complementary advantages and differentiated development.

For investors, this analysis carries significant warning implications. When evaluating emerging industry companies, one cannot merely look at whether they are in a hot track, but must examine whether they possess true differentiated competitive advantages and a position in the specialized division of labor. Enterprises that rely on policy subsidies to survive, lack core technical barriers, and are trapped in homogeneous price wars deserve skepticism regarding their long-term value. Conversely, those capable of building deep professional capabilities in specific industrial chain links or creating new value through cross-border integration are more likely to stand out amid policy corrections and market reshuffling.

Sources

  • 原文与论证eeo.com.cn↗
Topic

新兴产业内卷治理

【背景】“内卷式”竞争已成为中国新兴产业发展的核心痛点，指在缺乏技术突破时，企业通过价格战和重复建设争夺存量市场，导致资源错配与创新受阻。

6 steps1 piecesUpdated 2026-10-16 10:39

How it got here

  1. 2024-12-01中央经济工作会议提出综合整治“内卷式”竞争，规范地方政府和企业行为。
  2. 2025-07-01《求是》刊文《深刻认识和综合整治“内卷式”竞争》，分析成因并提出通过深化专业分工、促进跨行业跨区域融合来破解。
  3. 2025-09-17CSIS博客指出“内卷”成为2025年中国热词，反映了对无序价格战的担忧，并回顾历史类似现象。

What is still unsettled

  • 在保持地方经济增长动力的前提下，如何实质性改革政绩考核机制以消除“抢项目、堆政策”的内卷诱因？
  • 《反不正当竞争法》修订后，对平台经济“仅退款”及制造业超长账期等具体乱象的执法力度能否形成有效威慑？
  • 政府倡导的“跨行业跨区域融合”是否会遭遇地方保护主义的隐性抵制，导致要素流动依然受阻？
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