New guidance from Beijing tells Chinese carmakers to compete overseas without exporting the price war. The requirement it creates is operational, and much of it has to be met locally – which turns a familiar question for European service firms around: not how to enter China, but how to be found by Chinese companies entering Europe.
On September 1st 2026, China published new guidance for Chinese automotive companies operating abroad. The 20-article document covers pricing, distributors, marketing, production, procurement, after-sales service, employment, data, intellectual property, antitrust and environmental obligations. It is guidance rather than binding regulation, but its purpose is explicit: to make overseas competition more orderly and improve the ability of Chinese companies to operate compliantly outside China.
The focus on pricing is not accidental. Beijing has spent much of the past year trying to curb nèijuǎn — 内卷, or destructive “involution-style” competition — at home, particularly in industries where excess capacity and aggressive discounting have squeezed margins. In February 2026, SAMR introduced a domestic Automotive Industry Price Behaviour Compliance Guide, explicitly linking it to the campaign against involution-style competition and setting rules around below-cost selling, dealer pricing, promotions and internal price controls. The September document carries the same concern into overseas markets.
Chinese carmakers operating abroad are now encouraged to base prices on costs and local market conditions, avoid disruptive price moves, respect the pricing independence of distributors and comply with the competition and commercial rules of the country in which they operate. More importantly for what comes next, the guidance extends beyond price: companies are expected to build proper quality and after-sales systems, comply with local labour law, manage personal and vehicle data lawfully, protect intellectual property and meet environmental requirements.
The timing matters. China exported 8.32m vehicles in 2025 worldwide, while Chinese companies had invested in automotive manufacturing projects in more than 80 countries and regions, according to MOFCOM. Chinese automotive expansion has reached a scale at which problems once contained within the domestic market can now follow companies abroad.
Price can open a market. It cannot run one
Low prices helped Chinese manufacturers enter foreign markets quickly, but competing mainly on price becomes harder to sustain once several Chinese brands are fighting for the same customers. Deep and frequent discounts can weaken distributors, depress resale values and leave less room for service, repairs, spare parts and brand-building, while a price war between Chinese companies risks damaging the reputation that Beijing increasingly wants them to build overseas.
That changes where companies can compete. Product quality, service, distribution, local adaptation, regulatory execution and the ability to solve problems after the sale become more important, and many of those capabilities cannot be managed effectively from headquarters thousands of kilometres away.
It is a local operating agenda.
Europe shows what that means
The EU imported 1,105,806 new vehicles from China in 2025, worth €15.1bn. Within that total, 1,002,742 Chinese-made passenger cars worth €13.7bn entered the EU; 42.9% were battery-electric. Chinese-made cars accounted for 7% of total EU car sales and 20% of battery-electric car sales.
At those volumes, selling into Europe becomes much more than moving vehicles through a port.
One narrow requirement illustrates the point. Under Article 13(4) of Regulation (EU) 2018/858, a vehicle manufacturer established outside the EU must appoint a representative established within the Union for EU type approval and another representative for market surveillance; the same entity may perform both functions.
That requirement creates a function that must exist in Europe before the manufacturer can simply manage everything from China. The same pattern appears elsewhere: authorities need a local counterpart, employees have to be hired under local rules, VAT and customs need to be handled correctly, contracts must work under European law, customer data must be managed lawfully, warranties and repairs need an operating network, and distributors need support once products reach the market.
Some manufacturers will build those capabilities internally. Others will buy them from law firms, tax advisers, accountants, testing and certification organisations, recruiters, payroll providers, logistics companies, marketing agencies and specialist compliance firms.
And, in many cases, local providers.
Chinese companies already operate at global scale
The need for local support is not limited to a handful of large manufacturers. At the end of 2024, Chinese investors had established 52,000 overseas enterprises in 190 countries and regions, while China’s outward direct-investment stock stood at $3.14trn. Chinese overseas enterprises generated $3.6trn in sales that year and employed more than 5m people, almost two-thirds of them non-Chinese employees.
More recent investment flows are mixed rather than uniformly rising. During January-July 2026, total outward direct investment reached $99.53bn, up 7.3% in dollar terms, while non-financial outward direct investment fell 9.1% to $76.84bn. The important point is not that every measure of Chinese investment is accelerating, but that a large base of Chinese companies is already operating abroad and solving increasingly local problems there.
Cars make the change particularly visible, but the same pattern appears elsewhere. A robotics company entering Germany may need certification, contracts, distribution and technical support; an ecommerce company holding inventory in Spain faces customs, VAT, returns and product-compliance requirements; a battery producer investing in Hungary needs employment, accounting and environmental support.
Much of that work cannot be done from China. It has to be sourced locally.
Europe has the providers. China does not always see them
For European professional-service firms, this is where the commercial problem becomes less obvious.
Europe has thousands of law firms, accountants, tax advisers, certification companies, customs specialists and logistics providers capable of serving Chinese companies. But the existence of supply does not guarantee that a Chinese buyer can find it.
A Spanish law firm may have extensive foreign-investment experience while publishing only in Spanish and English. A Polish VAT specialist may rank strongly in Google but have little Chinese-language presence. A German testing company may describe its services using technical terms familiar to European clients while a Chinese manager searches for the same requirement using a different vocabulary and through different search, AI and content ecosystems.
The gap becomes larger when the buyer does not know which provider it needs.
A Chinese manager may start with a problem rather than a profession: Who can represent us for EU type approval? How do we register for VAT if we store goods in Spain? What do we need before hiring our first employee in Germany? Who can certify this product for sale in Europe?
Search engines, AI systems and professional directories then have to translate that problem into a shortlist of providers. A European company can be highly qualified and still be largely absent from that discovery process if its expertise is difficult to identify in Chinese, poorly represented in the sources used by Chinese buyers or described in a way that does not match how the buyer formulates the problem.
This creates an unusual asymmetry. Chinese companies increasingly need local European expertise, while many European providers capable of supplying it have never built any meaningful visibility towards China.
The demand can therefore exist before the connection does.
For a European service firm, a China strategy does not have to mean opening an office in Shanghai or selling to Chinese consumers. A law firm in Madrid, a customs specialist in Rotterdam or a tax adviser in Warsaw may need only a small number of Chinese companies entering its market at the point when they have a specific local problem and are ready to appoint someone to solve it.
The September automotive guidance makes that need unusually visible. Beijing is asking Chinese carmakers to compete abroad with better compliance, stronger local execution and more sustainable commercial practices rather than simply recreating the domestic price war overseas.
Doing that inevitably moves part of the work closer to the markets where Chinese companies operate.
EnterChina Matching
EnterChina gives European B2B service providers a structured way to become visible to Chinese companies looking for support in Europe. Providers join through a monthly subscription, after which EnterChina reviews their service scope, prepares their Chinese-language presence and activates the contact route within 3–5 business days.
When a Chinese company submits a relevant requirement, EnterChina reviews the enquiry, filters basic mismatches and supports the initial language and communication layer before passing an appropriate enquiry to participating providers. The Chinese company remains responsible for assessing providers and deciding whom, if anyone, to appoint.
EnterChina is not a transaction broker, does not take a commission from contracts concluded between the parties and does not recommend which provider a company should choose. It does not guarantee enquiries, selection or contracts.
The purpose is narrower: to make European firms with relevant expertise easier for Chinese companies to find, understand and contact when a local requirement arises.
Sources
China Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) — China’s Outward Direct Investment, January–July 2026, August 2026.
Latest official figures for total and non-financial outward direct investment.
Official statistics
China Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) — Guidelines on Overseas Competition and Compliance in the Automotive Industry, September 1, 2026.
Official guidance issued jointly with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and State Administration for Market Regulation.
Official source
China Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) — Official interpretation of the new overseas automotive guidelines, September 2026.
Includes data on China’s 2025 vehicle exports and overseas automotive investment.
Official source
State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) — Automotive Industry Price Behaviour Compliance Guide, February 12, 2026.
Sets out domestic rules on automotive pricing and links them to China’s campaign against “involution-style” competition.
Official source
European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) — EU-China Vehicle Trade Fact Sheet, May 4, 2026.
Data on EU vehicle imports from China, passenger-car volumes and China’s share of the EU battery-electric vehicle market.
Source
EUR-Lex / European Union — Regulation (EU) 2018/858 on the approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles, Article 13(4).
Requirements for representatives of manufacturers established outside the European Union.
EU legislation
China Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) — Launch of China’s National Overseas Business Services Platform, February 11, 2026.
Covers legal, tax, financial, customs, logistics and other services for Chinese companies operating abroad.
Official source
MOFCOM, National Bureau of Statistics and State Administration of Foreign Exchange — 2024 Statistical Bulletin of China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment, September 2025.
Official data on Chinese overseas enterprises, geographic coverage and outward investment stock.
Official statistics