While the Trump administration has embarked on a trade crusade against the rest of the world and intends to impose, both to its enemies and its allies, from the mirobal customs prices, China, a large rival of American power, can count on its automated factories to cope with this trade war.
According to the latest report of the International Federation of Robotics, China installed in 2023 no less than 276,300 industrial robots in its factories, or 51% of the volume of new robotic units on a global scale. It thus had 470 robots for 10,000 employees, behind South Korea, the most automated country in the world, and Singapore.
Fucked by artificial intelligence, these robots have revolutionized the manufacturing sector, making it possible to reduce manufacturing costs and accelerate mass production, while facing aging and the decrease in labor in the country.
“Made in China 2025”
This vast automation campaign, supported by hundreds of billions of investments, which today allows China to partially compensate for the new customs duties imposed by Washington, has been started by the long -standing Chinese government. Ten years ago, Beijing launched the initiative “Made in China 2025“, Which made robotics one of the ten sectors in which the country aims to become one of the world leaders.
A large part of the automatic equipment in the American automotive industry come from China, while most of the world’s automotive assembly factories built in the past twenty years are on Chinese soil.
In March 2025, Prime Minister Li Qiang, declared in his annual report to Parliament that China would try this year “Develop vigorously” Intelligent robots, and the country’s main economic planning agency announced to the endorsement the creation of a national venture capital fund of $ 137 billion (around 120 billion euros) for robotics, AI and other advanced technologies.
Banking investments, construction of factories, replacement of equipment, training of hundreds of thousands of mechanical engineering experts and qualified technicians … China puts the package on the new technologies sector to push an increasingly efficient automation: faced with American protectionism, it plays the productivity card.
