Export tax rebate adjustments: Chinese manufacturing embarks on a new journey toward value-driven growth.

In January 2026, the joint announcement by the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration regarding adjustments to export tax rebates attracted widespread attention. Starting April 1st, value-added tax on photovoltaic products will be eliminated, and the tax rebate rate for battery products will be gradually reduced to zero by 2027. This policy adjustment is not market intervention, but rather an inevitable choice for Chinese manufacturing to transform from scale expansion to value reconstruction, reflecting deep philosophical reflections on development logic, the nature of competition, and value attribution. Following the policy’s implementation, the market reacted immediately, demonstrating the tension between short-term interests and long-term development. On online platforms, topics such as “photovoltaic companies urgently resuming production to catch up on orders” and “battery manufacturers locking in overseas orders in advance” continued to gain momentum, reflecting companies’ rational response to the policy window. Feedback shows that some photovoltaic companies that had suspended production have restarted their production lines, and some even plan to work overtime during the Spring Festival to complete order deliveries before April and seize the last tax rebate benefits. Battery companies, on the other hand, have generally accelerated their production schedules to avoid cost pressures from future reductions in tax rebate rates. This short-term “export rush” is a natural market reaction to policy changes and also verifies Hegel’s dialectic of “what is rational is rational”—the pursuit of short-term profits by enterprises is a manifestation of market laws, while policy adjustments guide the industry to a higher level of development. The key to this policy adjustment lies in breaking the long-standing value imbalance of “tax rebates subsidizing overseas markets.” Data from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association shows that since 2024, photovoltaic product exports have exhibited a vicious cycle of “increased volume and decreased price,” with some companies directly converting export tax rebates into bargaining power, resulting in fiscal funds that should have been used to offset domestic tax burdens being indirectly transferred to overseas buyers. The essence of this phenomenon lies in the cognitive bias regarding “scale” and “value” during development. Export volume achieved at the cost of government subsidies not only squeezed the profit margins of domestic enterprises, causing the gross profit margin of the photovoltaic main industry chain to drop to a critical point, but also triggered frequent international trade frictions, making “subsidy dumping” an obstacle to industrial upgrading. From a philosophical perspective, this is a manifestation of “alienation”: the initial intention of the policy was to support industrial development, but it ultimately became a source of welfare for overseas markets, resulting in a divergence between the means and the purpose of industrial development. Gradually phasing out tax rebates is actually a return to the essence of industrial competition—shifting from policy dividend-driven to technology value-driven. Industry consensus holds that the global competitiveness of Chinese photovoltaic products is not based on tax rebates and subsidies; even with a 20% to 30% price increase, they still possess a global cost-performance advantage. The policy adjustment aims to strip away this non-market buffer, prompting enterprises to break free from the vicious cycle of low-price competition and shift towards technological innovation and product upgrading. From a developmental philosophy perspective, this is a dialectical unity of “breaking” and “establishing”: “breaking” is the path dependence on policy dividends, and “establishing” is a sustainable development model based on core competitiveness. As some leading enterprises have already established overseas production capacity and contract pricing mechanisms, true industrial confidence lies in the value dominance achieved through technological barriers. A deeper reflection lies in the fact that this adjustment demonstrates the logical shift of China’s economic development from “quantitative accumulation” to “qualitative leap,” conforming to the philosophical principle of “negation of negation.” Since its implementation in 1985, the export tax rebate policy has accompanied China’s foreign trade from weakness to strength, playing an irreplaceable role in a specific historical stage. The current cancellation and reduction are not a complete negation of past policies, but rather an adaptive adjustment in a new stage of industrial development—when industries possess the basic capabilities for global competition, policies shift from “support” to “guidance,” driving resources towards advantageous enterprises and achieving the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure. This adjustment confirms the dialectic of development: every policy has its historical rationale and inevitably iterates with the changing stages. Only through self-negation and reconstruction in accordance with trends can a higher level of development be achieved. The online discussion about “price increases for Chinese-made goods” is essentially an expectation of value return. The price increase resulting from the cancellation of export tax rebates is not a simple cost shift, but rather allows the true value of Chinese manufacturing to be reflected—no longer sacrificing profits and fiscal resources for market share, but gaining due global value recognition based on technological content and product quality. This embodies the principles of “fair competition” and “value-based”: in the global industrial chain, Chinese industries should obtain reasonable returns based on their own strength, rather than falling into low-dimensional competition of “subsidy races.” In this sense, the withdrawal of tax rebates is not only an adjustment of industrial policy, but also a revolution in development philosophy, marking that Chinese manufacturing is bidding farewell to the old logic of “scale priority” and embarking on a new journey of “value-driven” development. Looking back at this widely debated policy adjustment, its philosophical essence lies in revealing the nature of development: true strength does not rely on external support, but stems from the construction of internal core capabilities; true sustainable development is a dynamic balance achieved through continuous self-adjustment and value reconstruction. The withdrawal of tax rebates is not the end, but the starting point for Chinese manufacturing to participate in global competition with a more mature approach; it is an inevitable choice for industries to move towards a higher value dimension through negation and reconstruction.