WHEN China’s top industry official sought to prove that the nation’s innovation momentum was surging, he started with a formidable list of heavy engineering marvels. At a press briefing Tuesday, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Lecheng cited the Chang’e lunar missions, China’s space station, the homemade C919 passenger jet, the launch of the Adora Magic City luxury cruise liner, and the domestic breakthrough in vital ECMO medical devices. This evidence, he argued, shows China is rapidly shifting from “following” to “pacing” and increasingly “l(fā)eading” the world. But the roll call didn’t stop at aerospace and heavy equipment. Li then pivoted from such engineering feats to molecular science, highlighting new cancer treatments like Brukinsa (zanubrutinib) as globally recognized “star products” and further proof of this surging momentum. This specific drug exemplifies the shift. Developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company BeOne Medicines Ltd. and widely regarded in the industry as the nation’s first “billion-dollar molecule,” Brukinsa is recognized as a potential best-in-class BTK inhibitor, which has been approved in 75 markets — including the United States, Europe, and Japan. The company’s self-developed medicines have already benefited over 1.8 million patients globally. This breakthrough reflects a decade-long transformation. China’s innovative drugs sector has demonstrated clear advances in terms of the quantity of drugs in clinical trials and the quality of first-in-class assets, according to an analysis by Tianfeng Securities. A research note by the brokerage revealed that this acceleration is built upon a distinct blend of advantages — the presence of complete industrial supply chains, a deep engineering talent pool, improving basic research, and massive, sustained investment in research and development (R&D). Such investment is visible across the economy. Innovation spending has risen steadily, with large-scale manufacturing firms, each with an annual main business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (US$2.8 million), spending more than 1.6% of their operating revenue on R&D over the past five years. This push has placed over 570 industrial companies on the global top 2,500 list for R&D spending, while 64 Chinese manufacturing firms entered the Fortune 500 in 2024, said Li. This R&D focus is translating directly into advanced automation and modernized production. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), 46 Chinese cities have been piloting new technological transformation projects. China’s newly installed industrial robots now account for more than 50% of the global total, said the minister. The frontier of manufacturing is also advancing. Li said China now possesses full-chain manufacturing capabilities for humanoid robots, spanning key chips, components, and final assembly. In parallel, applications, for brain-computer interfaces are expanding beyond their origins in medicine — into new uses in education and industry. This rapid progress has been capturing international attention for a long time. Juha Roening, vice president of euRobotics, recently called China the biggest market for robots, thanks to its extensive industrial adoption. Roening described the nation’s robotics progress, driven by advances in artificial intelligence, as a “miracle.” He also called for deeper cooperation between Europe and China in the robotics supply chain. “I think there is a win-win situation if we can do the cooperative effort,” he said. Such industrial partnerships are already expanding globally. The China National Chemical Engineering Corp., for example, recently signed an agreement with Kazakhstan’s QazaqGaz Scientific and Technical Center for a major coal-to-gas project. This partnership will leverage China’s leading coal chemical technology and equipment manufacturing capabilities to transform Kazakhstan’s abundant coal resources into cleaner natural gas. This capability for complex, international projects rests on an unrivaled manufacturing bedrock. China’s manufacturing value-added output is expected to have contributed over 30% of global manufacturing growth during the 2021-2025 period, and the country has maintained its position as the world’s largest manufacturer for 15 straight years. China’s core advantage is its systemic completeness, a soup-to-nuts capability covering the vast majority of the 504 major industrial product categories recognized worldwide — leading the globe in output for most of them. This global market leadership was highly visible at IFA Berlin 2025, Europe’s largest consumer electronics trade fair. Held from Sept. 5 to 9, the event highlighted the latest trends in artificial intelligence, sustainability, and digital transformation. Chinese enterprises constituted a hard-to-ignore presence, with over 690 firms attending — accounting for more than one-third of all exhibitors. Nelson Holzner, CEO of global FinTech firm MODIFI, noted that Chinese appliance firms demonstrate a clear international stance and are actively seeking win-win cooperation with global partners. This sentiment is shared by international executives long embedded in China’s vast, dynamic market. Morii Go, chairman of Yamazen Shanghai Trading Co. Ltd., noted that his firm has been rooted in China since 2002 and serves over 10,000 enterprises locally. “China is the world’s most dynamic major manufacturing country and also a source of innovation in the intelligent and digital industries,” Morii said. This consensus was echoed in Tuesday’s report from the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing. The report concluded that as global supply chains accelerate their reconfiguration, driven by economic shifts, trade protectionism, and technological change, China is successfully upgrading its role as the “world’s factory” to a global supply chain hub. Reinforcing this hub status diplomatically, China has joined multiple countries in launching an initiative to enhance the resilience and stability of industrial and supply chains, aiming to safeguard global supply chains and foster more inclusive, stable partnerships, Li added. (Xinhua) | 