Upgrading China through Automation: Manufacturers, Workers and the Techno-Developmental State

Abstract

This article analyses how local states, electronics manufacturers and low-skilled workers perceive and make decisions about automation under China’s techno-developmentalism. Since the early 2010s, local states have made automation – specifically, the substitution of robots for human workers – the linchpin of their techno-developmentalist strategy and set statistical targets to facilitate policy implementation. Although manufacturers realised the limitations of such substitution, most continue to overstate the power of robots in order to receive material and symbolic benefits from local states, which rely on manufacturers to achieve their statistical targets. Meanwhile, most low-skilled workers embrace the state’s vision and see automation as beneficial for national progress, although these workers are the most excluded by state policy. Essentially, China’s techno-developmentalism has led to symbiotic state-capital relations that marginalise low-skilled workers, while reproducing a national sociotechnical imaginary that prioritises abstract notions of technological progress over the actual efficacy of automation, labour protection and social equality.

Industrial robots and air environment: A moderated mediation model of population density and energy consumption

“…The fast development and adoption of automation technologies exemplified by automatic vehicles, industrial robots, and artificial intelligence in the past few decades generate significant social and economic implications (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2019;Lei, 2021). Many existing studies focus on the influence of industrial robots on labor market out of the concern that machines are competing with human beings (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2021;Acemoglu and Autor, 2011).…”

“…In addition to the debates relating robots use with employment, wage and income share, the literature also touches upon the economic influence of industrial robots in economic growth (Aghion et al, 2019;Berg et al, 2018), energy consumption (Wang et al, 2022a), productivity (Kromann et al, 2020;Ballestar et al, 2020), technology advance (Liu et al, 2020), and the social impact (Lei, 2021).…”

“…An analysis by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI, 2017) reported that, by 2030, 400 million (15%) of the global labor force could be displaced by automation under a midpoint adoption scenario. This suggested that as a symbol of artificial intelligence under Industry 4.0 (Dantas et al, 2020;Elpidio et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2022a), industrial robots have increasingly penetrated into the production process and would bring significant economic and social consequences Restrepo, 2019, 2021;Acemoglu and Autor, 2011;Lei, 2021). In addition to the literature that focused on discussing labor market implications of the robot usage (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018a;Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2020), the mounting literature also concerned the impact of robots adoption on economic growth (Aghion et al, 2019), energy consumption (An et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2022a), productivity (Kromann et al, 2020;Ballestar et al, 2020), innovation (Liu et al, 2020), and the social implication on equity (Lei, 2021).…”

Collective regulation and the future of work in the digital economy: Insights from comparative employment relations

“…However, Dettmer (2021) found that the implementation of this agreement did not translate into an equally strong role for unions and workers, mainly due to a lack of funding. Lei (2021) argues that in China, automation and the substitution of robots for human workers is an essential strategy for local states as part of the country's techno-developmentalism. Even though manufacturers are aware of the limitations of this substitution, they continue to do so in order to receive material and symbolic benefits from local states.…”

“…Platform workers in countries with weaker independent collective bargaining institutions have more often taken the form of direct worker-organized protests and mobilizations, often coordinated by NGOs or grassroots labour organizations. Research in India (Shalini et al 2021), Brazil (Abilio et al, 2021) and China (Lei 2021;Liu and Friedman, 2021) has shown the central role of both solidarity among the workforce and with the public to these organizing efforts.…”