中國智造 (zhongguo zhizao): Intelligent manufacturing in China

The State Council, China's Cabinet, initiated the "made in China 2025" project recently, which is regarded as a Chinese version of "Industry 4.0". The key to achieving the new industrial revolution is intellectualization, which requires China to improve its infrastructural level from "made in China" to "created in China" and to "intelligent manufacturing in China".

China has become known as the world's factory in recent years because a huge amount of products made in China have been sold all over the world. "Made in China" has been associated with these inexpensive manufactured goods with low technological content. China has few enterprises with core technology or independent intellectual property rights. In many domestic industries, the dependency on external technology is more than 50 percent, while the percentage is only 5 percent in developed countries such as the United States and Japan. Many domestic enterprises make little money as original equipment manufacturers, because they don't have independent brands, independent design and independent core technology.

If China wants to move up the global industry chain, it has to change from being the world's processing factory to being an innovation base for the world. This means accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries with independent technology.

(China Daily 06/17/2015 page8)