Todd Bishop
On October 14, Beijing time, Chinese President Xi Jinping has ended his visit to South Asia and returned to Beijing. While the outside world still relishes his words and deeds in India and Nepal, few people have noticed another special role with the Chinese head of state.
It was the first Chinese delegation to fly to Chennai. On the 10th, it participated in the Chinese leader’s car that welcomed the rehearsal activities. According to the released news materials, these cars are all red flag N501 cars that the Chinese have installed since 2018. By the 12th, the Chinese head of the car flew to Kathmandu with the flight and returned to Beijing around the 14th.
These “China-made red flag vehicles”, which currently represent the highest level of China’s auto industry, have also become a key detail in interpreting Beijing’s attitude towards the Chinese auto industry.
Beijing no longer seeks customers to accompany the Lord
Looking around the world, the heads of big countries have their attachments to the car. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump are very particular about the “domestic manufacturing” and “self-provided cars.”
Putin’s special car is called “Golden Russia”, made by the Russian mainland, weighing 6 tons and 6.6 meters long. It replaced the Mercedes-Benz S-series that Putin had previously chosen. This car debuted at his inauguration ceremony in May 2018 and was developed by the Russian National Automotive Engineering Research Institute (NAMI), which also means Russia’s first since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Has a domestic presidential car.
Trump also has his own car, the latter named “Cadillac No.1”, also known as “Army No.1”, nicknamed “The Beast”, which made its debut in September 2018 when Trump attended the UN Security Council meeting. The data shows that the car is worth 1.5 million US dollars and the total length is 5.49 meters. The whole body is made of high-strength steel, aluminum alloy, titanium alloy and ceramics. It is very strong and its protective performance can even be compared with armored vehicles.
In contrast, the Chinese side still adheres to the tradition of “guest and the owner” around 2017, but by 2018, China has gradually changed its tradition. Its behavior is no less than advertising.
As Xi Jinping suggested in December 2012 that the Chinese people want to choose domestically produced cars, by 2013, the outside world found that the red flag cars that appeared occasionally in major events gradually returned to the foreign affairs field. This is undoubtedly some of the most direct hard advertising for the Chinese auto industry, which hopes to use “independent brands to develop internationalized maps.”
In this way, the Hongqi L5 and L9 sedan that China First Automobile Group had just publicly displayed in that year had ample room for display. On April 25, 2013, Beijing took the opportunity of welcoming French President Francois Hollande to make a “release” for the Red Flag L9 sedan that had just stepped out of the production line.
By 2014, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Beijing Summit, China also used the Red Flag L5 sedan, which was only put on the market, as the official car for the conference. By 2015, Belarus also used the Red Flag L5 sedan as a special vehicle for review. This has become a rare page for Chinese luxury cars to export overseas.
What does Xi Jinping’s new car mean?
On July 21, 2018, when Xi Jinping arrived in Senegal for a state visit, the “Red Flag” sedan with the Chinese five-star red flag appeared in the picture of China’s CCTV “News Network”, which triggered the horror of the auto industry.
For the automotive industry, the new cars selected by the Chinese delegation are very popular. They are not the Red Flag L9 used for many years, but the Red Flag N501, which was developed by FAW Group since 2016 and was once listed as a “new business project”.
Because the N501 is equipped with the appearance of the red flag traditional model CA770 (namely Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other early Chinese leaders), it has the same power as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Therefore, many analysts believe that Beijing’s ideas in this foreign affairs activity may be far beyond imagination.
Considering that China FAW Group, which produces red flag cars, has an amazing plan of “selling 100,000 red flag cars in 2020; selling 200,000 cars in 2025; selling 500,000 cars by 2035” comes from The advertisement of the Chinese president is very valuable.
A key step in China’s auto industry
Soon, the outside world gradually saw the red flag N501 in more foreign affairs activities in Beijing.
From the summit of the G20 in Argentina on November 29, 2018, after 2019, from Italy, France, Morocco, to Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, to North Korea, Japan, including this India. On the trip, Xi Jinping’s every visit has the presence of this type of car.
Indeed, the Red Flag series of cars as a high-end product of “Made in China”, his history may still be a history of imitation.
According to the data, the first generation of “Red Flag” was developed on the basis of the Chrysler “Imperial” and the Soviet Gil-111 series sedan; the second generation “Mingshi” series was based on the Audi 100; the third generation “Shengshi” draws on the technical details of the Toyota Crown; the HQE model has the shadow of Rolls-Royce “Phantom”. But when it comes to the latest generation of the N501, its appearance will have more independent intellectual property rights.
Some analysts believe that with the Chinese foreign affairs activity special vehicle “Red Flag L5” has gradually opened to the civilian market, with L5 as the basis for research and development, the intention of becoming the new generation of China’s high-end famous red flag N501 gradually emerges.
Although the car is unlikely to enter the civilian market in the end, its technical details are difficult to expose, but when the outside world is interested in China’s high-end cars, Beijing’s move has achieved its goal. This is also a step worthy of observation for the Chinese auto industry, which has a 70-year history of development and is striving to achieve leapfrog development from “technical follow-up” to “technology leadership.”
