As Greater China markets charge into the third quarter with the wind at their backs, there is increasing evidence that 2025 is the year Chinese intellectual property goes global.
A month ago, I wrote about the peculiar appeal of
the Labubu doll, which seemingly leapt out of nowhere to become a global pop culture phenomenon. This was the latest example of a successful Chinese entertainment IP – a unique asset with intangible social value – taking off.
Meanwhile, China is also making huge progress in
humanoid robotics, an advanced technology segment where the country is dominating. This burgeoning industry is ripe for value creation as robotics developers not only own the production and hardware assets, but also the underlying artificial intelligence IP powering their capabilities.
The modern global economy has IP at its core. A 2023 analysis from the UCLA Anderson School of Business calculated that intangible assets comprised more than 90 per cent of the total assets on the balance sheets of S&P 500 companies.
The market increasingly sees IP as the catalyst for further growth in Chinese stock valuations, with the latest prominent example being China’s booming biotechnology sector. While Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index finally turned bullish this year and is up more than 20 per cent in the year to date, the Hang Seng Biotech Index has nearly doubled.
What is behind this? The transformation from an industry focused on
low-cost generics and mass manufacturing towards high-value innovation was driven by deliberate policy choices and facilitating competition in the domestic market. Regulators took aim at reining in drug prices starting in 2018 with the launch of a national procurement scheme that allowed for centralised negotiating and bulk purchasing. A 2024 study by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology estimated that the programme had saved China’s healthcare system more than 500 billion yuan (US$69.3 billion) since implementation, nearly all of which came from generic drugs.
