WANG Qian:Whether Chinese Manufacturing Industry Should Climb to the Both Ends of “Smiling Curve” ——Based on Comparative Analysis on Traditional Manufacturing Powerhouses

Abstract: Chinese manufacturing industry exceeded the United States in size，however，it also gets impacted by gloomy global economiy, lack of core technologies and the “reindustrialization” of developed economies. Based on “Smiling Curve” theory, this paper selected trade data from 1991 to 2011 to analyze the differences of manufacturing sectors between China and traditional manufacturing powerhousefrom the aspects of product category and architecture. The analysis also aims to explore whether China has accumulated enough experience in manufacturing to climb to the both ends of “Smiling Curve.” Then，this paper introduced the Japanese “Reverse Smiling Curve” to further explore whether there exists profit space for manufacturing or not. The results showed that China’s manufacturing capacity, especially the assembly capacity of “integrated products ,” is still weak. Therefore, it is necessary to walk the way of “the work shop of the world” for China.

Keywords : Smiling Curve，Manufacturing，Modularity，Integration