China breaks foreign monopoly with giant TV screens

Two new Chinese LCD screens in Beijing's imposing Great Hall of the People have replaced screens made by a Japanese competitor, in a sign of resolve to supply the world with Chinese brands and not just Made in China products. The screens, installed for the annual session of parliament ending on Wednesday, are made by Chinese electronics giant TCL. At 110 inches, they are the world's largest, just a touch wider than the 108-inch Panasonic models they replaced. "We have broken through the Japanese and South Korean monopoly of big flat-screen TVs," TCL chairman Li Dongsheng boasted at a launch ceremony on Friday. Officials from the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and the government of Shenzhen, TCL's hometown, clapped and nodded. The government is encouraging its companies to move up the value chain and develop margin-producing brands, partly as a matter of national pride but also to shift the world's second-biggest economy away from gritty, low-profit manufacturing. This month, MIIT posted new rules requiring officials, who overwhelmingly prefer German luxury brands such as Audi, to buy only local cars. Other efforts, including government support for domestic companies engaged in "indigenous innovation", have led to allegations that China is unfairly trying to tilt the playing field towards its own industry by guaranteeing government purchases and by setting standards that favour Chinese companies over established industry leaders.