{"text":[[{"start":7.34,"text":"The writer is a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis"}],[{"start":14.34,"text":"Chinese companies accounted for more than half of all the humanoid robot exhibitors on show at this year’s CES tech trade show in Las Vegas. That prominence was no accident. China’s position in robotics reflects an industrial dynamic that has been building for decades."}],[{"start":34.22,"text":"The country’s manufacturing system, anchored by dense, highly co-ordinated supply chains, means that it can move quickly in robotics — a field also known as embodied AI. Scale manufacturing and vertical integration allow Chinese tech companies to compress development cycles and aggressively lower costs."}],[{"start":53.55,"text":"These advantages have already shaped China’s electric vehicle sector, where early scepticism about quality and sophistication eventually gave way to global dominance."}],[{"start":66.19,"text":"Engineering talent has reinforced these foundations. China has cultivated a large and increasingly diverse pool of specialised labour across automation, control systems and advanced manufacturing."}],[{"start":81.67999999999999,"text":"Yet beyond the Vegas exhibition halls, the mood among Chinese tech vendors was notably more restrained. In closed-door conversations, there were no illusions about the challenges they face."}],[{"start":95.02999999999999,"text":"Entrepreneurs in China consistently point to weaknesses in frontier research and advanced materials caused by US restrictions on hardware. Engineering ingenuity can only stretch existing resources so far and access to deep, liquid capital markets remains tight. Most robotic start-ups are still in cash-burning, pre-profit phases with little margin for delay."}],[{"start":119.76999999999998,"text":"These realities help to explain the sector’s accelerating rush towards public listings. Over the past year, dozens of Chinese robotics and AI companies have filed for IPOs in Hong Kong, many of them frantically oversubscribed. Investor enthusiasm for companies such as Geek+ and OneRobotics is genuine but so is the fundraising urgency. Embodied AI is a capital-intensive, long-horizon business. And although listing rules for hard tech have loosened, the queue remains long and the timelines uncertain."}],[{"start":156.42,"text":"The result is a growing bias from start-up investors for development paths with commercial justification."}],[{"start":164.75,"text":"Despite wide variation in technical approaches, many Chinese robotics firms are converging on the same applications: industrial automation, logistics, hazardous environments and household tasks. Even so, large-scale deployment in the near term is unrealistic. The viral, dancing robots remain far from commercial reality."}],[{"start":189.54,"text":"As with electric vehicles, this means that China’s manufacturing prowess is both an enabler and a constraint. Expansion outpaces demand. That means global markets are critical to the success of the sector. Hence all the stalls at CES — the biggest electronics trade show in the world."}],[{"start":210.01999999999998,"text":"Within the US, Chinese technology is often viewed primarily through a security lens. China hopes that US export controls will gradually lose their bite. But this is not the end of the sector’s problems. There is growing concern within China that the country’s own emphasis on national security and self-sufficiency risks underestimating the need for access to international hardware and global markets. And there is recognition that a research culture that prioritises short-term goals is poorly suited to large-scale breakthroughs."}],[{"start":248.04999999999998,"text":"A familiar line is now circulating in the country: China once exchanged market access for technology; today, that logic is reversing."}],[{"start":259.72999999999996,"text":"This pattern extends beyond robotics. See the Hong Kong IPOs of other tech companies such as Zhipu and MiniMax. At a recent high-profile AI industry summit in Beijing, China’s leading tech superstars openly warned of limited access to high-end chips, capital and complained about a research culture that was overly focused on deliverables."}],[{"start":284.35999999999996,"text":"The robots that are on display to the rest of the world offer a vivid demonstration of China’s strengths. But despite strong policy support for emerging technologies, Beijing remains highly sensitive to perceived leakage of technology and talent. Understanding China’s technological future requires moving beyond a simplistic “who is winning” narrative. The more consequential story lies in how geopolitical constraints are rewriting incentives, business models and the direction of innovation."}],[{"start":318.28999999999996,"text":"For both the US and China, the greatest risk to progress does not lie in technological advancement, an area in which both countries are formidable. The real risk is that political narratives will strip innovation of the shared foundations that are needed to make it durable, intelligible and safe. "}],[{"start":346.58,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1769011488_1136.mp3"}