Commentary: What Beijing Is Learning From Its War on ‘Excessive Competition’

Published: Nov. 24, 2025 5:54 p.m. GMT+8

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The scope of the anti-involution campaign has expanded from traditional industries such as steel, coal and cement to emerging fields such as solar, new-energy vehicles and the platform economy. Photo: VCG

Excessive “involution-style” competition has become a significant bottleneck constraining the efficiency of China’s economy. It has been over a year since a July 2024 Politburo meeting first called for “preventing vicious, ‘involution-style’ competition,” and related policies have continued to roll out. The task of “comprehensively addressing ‘involution-style’ competition” has now been incorporated into the proposal for the 15th Five-Year Plan.

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This is an AI-generated English rendering of original reporting or commentary published by Caixin Media. In the event of any discrepancies, the Chinese version shall prevail.

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