How Local China Built the EV Boom

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China’s electric-vehicle industry has become one of the most contested stories in the global economy. To some, it is a textbook case of successful industrial policy. To others, it is a story of subsidies, overcapacity, brutal price wars, and unfair competition, now spilling into trade disputes with the U.S. and Europe.A drone view shows electric vehicles (EV) for export and containers sitting at a port in Shanghai, China April 13, 2025. China DailyA newly published paper offers a more nuanced explanation. In “The Rise of China’s Electric Vehicle Industry: Strategic Alliances Between Local Governments and Private Capital,” published in the July issue of The China Journal in 2026, Fengming Lu and Xiao Ma argue that China’s EV boom was driven in large part by alliances between ambitious local governments and agile private firms, which repeatedly found ways around tight central regulations—a dynamic that produced both China’s spectacular EV successes and many of its costly failures.Fengming Lu is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Political and Social Change at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. His research spans comparative politics and Chinese politics, with a particular focus on China’s political economy, industrial policy, local governance, and political selection. Drawing on three decades of observation of China’s automotive sector, Fengming is currently working on a book project examining the rise of China’s EV industry. The project explores the interplay between central industrial policies, local governments…