►►In late March, the relatively unknown Chinese motorcycle maker ZXMOTO clinched back-to-back titles in the World Supersport categor y at the Portuguese round of the Superbike World Championship, breaking a decades-long monopoly held by established global brands.
BEIJING-Hailed by international media as a testament to China’s manufacturing strength and comprehensive local supply chain, the victory highlights a larger reality: as global economic turbulence intensifies, China’s manufacturing sector is proving its resilience and capacity for high-quality growth.
FROM BIG TO STRONG
Having maintained its position as the world’s largest manufacturing hub for 16 consecutive years, China has fortified its key industrial and supply chains to become more resilient, providing strong support for weathering major risks.
The country’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) has made moving faster to boost its strength in manufacturing a central task, calling for maintaining a reasonable share of manufacturing in the economy and building a modern industrial system led by advanced manufacturing.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, during the 2026-2030 period, the country will shore up weak links, strengthen competitive edges and seize early-mover advantages, with the goal of moving from key breakthroughs to all-round advantages.
Xin Yongfei, an expert with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, noted that China’s manufacturing sector already has the scale and innovation foundation.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, he said, maintaining strategic focus and concentrating on crucial areas will allow China to leap from « following » to « running alongside » and even « leading, » laying a solid foundation for basically achieving new industrialization.
Local governments have also rolled out concrete plans: Hunan Province in central China will implement landmark projects for an advanced manufacturing highland, Shanghai in east China aims to build the « Made in Shanghai » brand, and southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality is pushing to become a strong manufacturing city.
CORE-RESHAPING INNOVATION
In Beijing’s Yizhuang District, also known as E-town, humanoid robots can be seen training for a half-marathon. Many of them can now run at speeds of up to six meters per second, rivaling the pace of professional athletes.
This leap mirrors a broader push toward higher-end, smarter and greener manufacturing. The 15th Five-Year Plan outlines a series of concrete steps: improving manufacturing quality, boosting the resilience of industrial and supply chains, and achieving breakthroughs in core technologies.
One telling example is the recent release of China’s domestically developed T1200-grade ultra-high-strength carbon fiber, now the strongest industrially produced carbon fiber in the world.
« Thanks to this technological breakthrough, our domestically produced large aircraft will be lighter, deep-space exploration can go farther, and new energy vehicles will have longer range. It provides a stronger ‘skeleton’ for future industries, » said Chen Qiufei, the R&D lead.
Meanwhile, companies are shifting from selling hardware to offering integrated solutions. DJI, known for its drones, now provides agricultural plant protection solutions, with related service revenue accounting for more than 30 percent of its total.
Similarly, Chinese battery maker Sunwoda has built a six-dimensional maglev production line and a digital twin system to improve its own manufacturing efficiency, and is now exporting smart manufacturing solutions to others.
The results are visible in the data. In the first two months of 2026, the value-added output of high-tech manufacturing enterprises grew 13.1 percent year on year, while that of equipment manufacturing rose 9.3 percent.
The « AI plus manufacturing » initiative has been implemented, with the adoption rate of AI technology among major manufacturing firms exceeding 30 percent. Meanwhile, more than 8,300 green factories have been established nationwide.
MORE OPEN LANDSCAPE
At the same time, China’s manufacturing sector is opening up further. In Zhanjiang, south China’s Guangdong Province, German chemicals giant BASF’s massive production complex, known as a Verbund site, has started production, marking the largest single investment project wholly owned by a German enterprise in China.
Thousands of miles away in Tatabanya, Hungary, Chinese heavy machinery manufacturer Zoomlion’s first European smart factory has opened, providing a stable and efficient product supply and better localized services for European customers.
All foreign investment restrictions in the manufacturing sector have been lifted in China. In the first two months of this year, China’s exports of high-tech and high-value-added mechanical and electrical products reached 2.89 trillion yuan (about 418.9 billion U.S. dollars), up 24.3 percent year on year.
As China navigates an increasingly volatile world, its manufacturing sector is actively integrating into global markets, offering vast cooperation opportunities for the world.
By Xinhua
