By Ju Li 巨力 in the July 1 2025 issue of Qiushi

http://www.qstheory.cn/20250629/6d682af56d64487f817084e890fbcdfd/c.html

Translated by https://sinocism.com/

In recent years, "involutionary" competition has caused significant harm to many industries and enterprises, attracting widespread social attention and urgently requiring effective rectification. The 2024 Central Economic Work Conference proposed comprehensive rectification of "involutionary" competition and standardization of local government and enterprise behavior. During this year's National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference sessions, General Secretary Xi Jinping explicitly required actively breaking down local protectionism, market segmentation, and "involutionary" competition. This year's Government Work Report made relevant arrangements for comprehensive rectification of "involutionary" competition. The recently revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law implements the Party Central Committee's spirit regarding comprehensive rectification of "involutionary" competition and improves related provisions. We must deeply understand the great significance of rectifying "involutionary" competition, accurately grasp the harms and causes of "involutionary" competition, continuously explore effective measures to rectify "involutionary" competition in practice, strive to create a fair competitive market environment, and provide strong guarantees for high-quality development.

近年来，"内卷式"竞争让不少行业和企业深受其害，引起社会广泛关注，亟须进行有效整治。2024年中央经济工作会议提出，综合整治"内卷式"竞争，规范地方政府和企业行为。今年全国两会期间，习近平总书记明确要求主动破除地方保护、市场分割和"内卷式"竞争。今年的《政府工作报告》对综合整治"内卷式"竞争作出了相关安排。近日新修订的反不正当竞争法，贯彻党中央关于综合整治"内卷式"竞争精神，完善了相关规定。我们要深刻认识整治"内卷式"竞争的重大意义，准确把握"内卷式"竞争的危害和成因，在实践中不断探索有效整治"内卷式"竞争的举措，努力创造公平竞争的市场环境，为高质量发展提供坚强保障。

I. What are the prominent manifestations and main harms of "involutionary" competition?

一、"内卷式"竞争的突出表现和主要危害有哪些？

What is "involutionary" competition? Summarizing its general characteristics, it refers to the vicious competitive phenomenon where economic entities continuously invest large amounts of energy and resources to maintain market position or compete for limited markets, yet fail to bring about overall revenue growth. There are large enterprises "involuting" small enterprises, platform enterprises "involuting" platform operators, and those "involuting" production capacity, prices, and peers, resulting in mutual losses and seriously affecting high-quality economic development.

什么是"内卷式"竞争？概括其一般特征，是指经济主体为了维持市场地位或争夺有限市场，不断投入大量精力和资源，却没有带来整体收益增长的恶性竞争现象。有大企业"卷"小企业，有平台企业"卷"平台内经营者，还有"卷"产能、"卷"价格、"卷"同行的，结果却是多败俱伤，严重影响经济高质量发展。

In reality, "involutionary" competition manifests differently with varying characteristics, mainly involving two types of behavioral entities: enterprises and local governments. From the perspective of enterprise behavior, "involutionary" competition mainly manifests as: First, low-price competition—in some industries, enterprise products are highly similar in performance, quality, and after-sales service, with enterprises mainly relying on price wars to gain market share, selling at ultra-low prices or even below cost; Second, homogeneous competition—some enterprises ignore consideration of industry patterns and their own capabilities, blindly pursuing so-called hot trends and expanding production accordingly, leading to serious redundant construction within industries and lack of differentiated competitive advantages; Third, promotional marketing "race to the bottom"—some enterprises invest large amounts of resources in advertising and channel promotion, while product quality and service do not improve correspondingly, causing market competition to fall into a vicious cycle that emphasizes promotion over quality. From the perspective of local government behavior, "involutionary" competition mainly manifests as: First, artificially creating policy havens to attract enterprises and cultivate industries, irregularly implementing unfair and non-universal preferential policies regarding taxes, fees, subsidies, and land use, leading to disorderly competition; Second, disregarding local industrial foundations and resource endowments, blindly launching emerging industries and key industries, causing massive redundant construction and overproduction within industries; Third, setting explicit or implicit market barriers to protect local markets and support local enterprises, treating various enterprises differently and disrupting fair competition order.

现实中，"内卷式"竞争表现不同、特征各异，主要涉及企业和地方政府两类行为主体。从企业行为看，"内卷式"竞争主要表现为：一是低价竞争，在有的行业，企业产品性能、品质、售后服务等方面高度雷同，企业主要依赖价格战获取市场份额，以超低价甚至低于成本价销售；二是同质化竞争，有的企业忽视对产业规律和自身实力的考量，盲目追逐所谓的热点跟风扩产，导致产业内重复建设严重，缺乏差异化竞争优势；三是宣传营销"逐底竞争"，一些企业在广告、渠道推广等方面投入大量资源，而产品质量和服务却未相应提升，市场竞争陷入只重宣传、不重品质的不良循环。从地方政府行为看，"内卷式"竞争主要表现为：一是为招引企业、培育产业，人为制造政策洼地，违规实施税费、补贴、用地等不公平非普惠的优惠政策，导致无序竞争；二是不顾地方产业基础和资源禀赋情况，盲目上马新兴产业、重点产业，造成行业内大量重复建设和生产过剩；三是为保护本地市场、扶持本地企业，设置或明或暗的市场壁垒，区别对待各类企业，破坏公平竞争秩序。

Market allocation of resources is the most efficient form, and competition is an important mechanism for market economy operation. Through competition, resource allocation is optimized and survival of the fittest is achieved, forcing enterprises to continuously innovate technology and improve business management, thereby improving economic operational efficiency and promoting economic development and technological progress—this is where the advantages of market economy lie. Since reform and opening up, as China's socialist market economic system was established and gradually improved, our ability to grasp and utilize market economic laws has greatly enhanced. We have gradually resolved issues that long plagued us, such as insufficient market competition, irregular market order, lagging development of factor markets, and non-unified market rules, driving China to grow within decades into a super-large-scale economy with GDP exceeding 130 trillion yuan. Social productivity achieved leapfrog development, completely bidding farewell to shortage economy, with material products becoming increasingly abundant and people's lives becoming more prosperous. In recent years, China's scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation achievements have emerged in succession, achieving new breakthroughs in fields such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and new energy. More and more enterprises are demonstrating strong competitiveness in international markets, which is closely related to intense domestic market competition forcing enterprises to continuously innovate technology, and has promoted rapid development of related industrial chains and China's industrial upgrading. Practice fully proves that developing socialist market economy and encouraging market competition is an important reason why China's economy continues to create development miracles.

市场配置资源是最有效率的形式，竞争是市场经济运行的重要机制。通过竞争优化资源配置、实现优胜劣汰，倒逼企业不断创新技术、改善经营管理，进而提高经济运行效率，促进经济发展、技术进步，这是市场经济的优势所在。改革开放以来，随着我国社会主义市场经济体制建立并逐步完善，我们把握和运用市场经济规律的能力大幅提升，逐步解决长期困扰我们的市场竞争不充分、市场秩序不规范、生产要素市场发展滞后、市场规则不统一等问题，推动我国在几十年时间内成长为国内生产总值超过130万亿元的超大规模经济体，社会生产力实现跨越式发展，彻底告别短缺经济，物质产品日益丰富，人民生活越来越宽裕。近年来，我国科技创新和产业创新成果竞相涌现，集成电路、人工智能、新能源等领域实现新突破，越来越多企业在国际市场中展现出强大竞争力，这与激烈的国内市场竞争倒逼企业不断创新技术密切相关，并推动了相关产业链快速发展和我国产业升级。实践充分证明，发展社会主义市场经济，鼓励市场竞争，是中国经济不断创造发展奇迹的一个重要原因。

However, market competition has conditions and scope. Market competition is beneficial for improving resource allocation efficiency, but once competition goes too far and crosses boundaries, evolving into disorderly "involution," it will distort market mechanisms, destroy market fairness, and cause many negative impacts. At the micro level, vicious low-price competition and other behaviors will lead enterprises to compress necessary production costs and reduce product quality, creating a "bad money drives out good money" phenomenon that will ultimately harm consumer interests. At the meso level, various disorderly competitive behaviors cause industry profit margins to decline significantly, destroying the entire industry ecosystem. For example, some enterprises use their advantageous positions to reduce costs through advance construction funding, delayed payment of accounts, and non-cash settlements. Media statistics on some domestic new energy vehicle companies found that their average account period exceeded 170 days, with some companies' account periods even exceeding 240 days. As another example, some leading platforms compete for market share by establishing rules such as "refund only" and excessive subsidies, actually transferring pressure to numerous merchants. These behaviors squeeze profit margins throughout the upstream and downstream industrial chain, seriously affecting enterprise reproduction and R&D investment, and also impact the entire industry's development momentum. At the macro level, "involutionary" competition causes backward production capacity to crowd out advanced production capacity, suppresses social innovation vitality, distorts resource allocation efficiency, leads to market elimination mechanism failure, and causes enormous waste of social resources. Particularly when some localities pursue short-term economic growth regardless of cost, it may also bring serious debt risks and unsustainable development problems.

但市场竞争是有条件、有范围的。市场竞争有利于提高资源配置效率，可一旦竞争过了头、越了界，演变成无序"内卷"，就会扭曲市场机制、破坏市场公平，造成诸多负面影响。微观层面，低价恶性竞争等行为将导致企业压缩必要生产成本、降低产品质量，出现"劣币驱逐良币"现象，最终会损害消费者利益。中观层面，各种无序竞争行为导致行业利润率大幅下降，破坏整个行业生态。比如，有的企业利用优势地位通过垫资施工、延后支付账款、用非现金结算等手段降低成本。有媒体对国内部分新能源车企统计发现，其账期均值超过170天，部分车企的账期甚至超过240天。又如，有的头部平台通过制定"仅退款"、过度补贴等规则抢夺市场份额，实际是把压力转嫁给广大商铺。这些行为挤压了产业链上下游利润空间，严重影响企业再生产与研发投入，也影响整个行业发展后劲。宏观层面，"内卷式"竞争使落后产能挤出先进产能，抑制社会创新活力，扭曲资源配置效率，导致市场淘汰机制失灵，造成社会资源的巨大浪费，特别是有的地方不计成本追逐短期经济增长，还可能带来严重债务风险和发展不可持续问题。

In summary, "involutionary" competition confines all types of entities in low-price, low-quality competition without benefits, breaking through the boundaries and bottom lines of market competition, disrupting market order, and allowing its development will cause endless harm. More than 20 years ago, Chinese motorcycle enterprises competing for Southeast Asian markets staged "fratricidal" price cuts to gain a foothold, ultimately affecting technological innovation and product quality, leading to a rapid decline in the reputation of China's export products and a cliff-like drop in market share—a painful lesson that is deeply regrettable. Currently, some of China's emerging industries are deeply troubled by "involutionary" competition. If they do not receive timely and effective rectification, it will not only damage enterprise reputation and brand image and hinder enterprises' "going out," but will also delay China's technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and high-quality development. We must deeply learn from historical lessons, rectify timely and effectively, and avoid repeating past mistakes.

总之，"内卷式"竞争将各类主体禁锢在低价低质、没有效益的竞争中，突破了市场竞争的边界和底线，扰乱了市场秩序，任其发展将贻害无穷。20多年前，竞逐东南亚市场的中国摩托车企业为了站稳脚跟，曾经上演"自相残杀"式降价，最后影响了技术创新和产品质量，导致我国出口产品口碑急速下滑，市场占有率断崖式下跌，惨痛教训令人扼腕。当前，我国一些新兴行业深受"内卷式"竞争困扰，如果得不到及时有效整治，不仅会损害企业信誉和品牌形象，阻碍企业"走出去"，也将迟滞我国技术创新、产业升级和高质量发展。我们要深刻吸取历史教训，及时有效加以整治，避免重蹈覆辙。

II. How is "involutionary" competition formed?

二、"内卷式"竞争是怎么形成的？