Weblog with daily updates of the news on a frugal, fair and beautiful China, from the perspective of internet entrepreneur, new media advisor and president of the China Speakers Bureau Fons Tuinstra
If you want to understand why China is pulling ahead in the humanoid race, don’t start with the robots. Start with what’s underneath them.
Supply chain speed is the advantage: In Shenzhen, a robotics startup can source high-torque actuators, precision harmonic drives, and rare-earth magnet motors within a 30-minute drive. This “half-hour supporting circle” means prototypes that take Western companies 18 months to iterate can be revised in 3–6 months.
Real-world data is the edge: China has established a growing network of humanoid robot training facilities, including two national-level centers in Beijing and Shanghai, with regional hubs across the country. These facilities are collectively amassing millions of real-world training data points annually. And these aren’t sanitized lab environments; they’re 1:1 replicas of real factories, warehouses, and retail spaces.
Clear standards are the shortcut: On February 28, 2026, China released its first national standard system for humanoid robotics, covering six core areas: foundational standards, brain-like computing, hardware components, whole-machine systems, applications, and safety ethics. This isn’t bureaucracy for its own sake but a playbook for scale. As industry moves from the “0 to 1” phase into “1 to 10,” standards are what keep everyone from reinventing the wheel.
The results are measurable. According to the International Data Corporation, China’s embodied intelligence robot market will top $11 billion in 2026. The country’s service and consumer robotics manufacturers, meanwhile, are expected to account for more than 85% of global shipments.
Some rumours suggest China will use the ongoing geopolitical tension to prepare for a takeover of Taiwan. Wrong, says Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order, in a wide-ranging podcast with Cyrus Janssen at the Singjup0st. “Every six months,” says Rein, “somebody hires me since the late 90s, saying, This is the perfect time for Taiwan to be invaded and taken over by mainland China.’ And so every six months for the last 29 years, I’ve been giving speeches, keynotes, workshop sessions, because I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
The Singjupost:
SHAUN REIN: So for your audience who don’t know me, I’m actually American, but I’ve been in China for most of the last 29 years. And one of the ways that I’ve made a lot of money, Cyrus, frankly, is every six months, somebody hires me ever since the late 90s, saying, “This is the perfect time for Taiwan to be invaded and taken over by mainland China.” And so every six months for the last 29 years, I’ve been giving speeches, keynotes, workshop sessions, because I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.
I remember in 2022, at the height of COVID, the Chinese economy was probably in a recession. Even though the official figures didn’t say that, people were miserable. That would have been a great time for the CPC to invade Taiwan to distract people from the overhang of COVID as well as from the weak economy.
There are a number of reasons why, Cyrus, that I don’t view a military invasion to be imminent. The first, and this is a little bit more touchy, but you got to remember there are nine people on the Central Military Commission. This is the highest military commission in China. Seven of the nine have been arrested or publicly investigated in the last year and a half for corruption. Now, I don’t know if it’s factional fighting or if it’s truly corruption. It could truly be corruption because the military was rotten to the core over the last several decades. But what it means is when you take out seven of the nine top military leaders and you only have two left, and one of them is Xi Jinping himself, who’s obviously not a military leader, I’m not sure that you have the military leadership in place to launch something like a Taiwan invasion. That’s the first point.
The second point is China, I think, likes to do more of a “buy by influence” approach. Now, what do I mean by this? In Xinjiang and Tibet, these two regions did have a lot of ethnic unrest 10, 15 years ago. We have to be honest about that. So what did China do? Well, they launched huge programs to build up the medical care sectors, to build up the education sectors and build up infrastructure. They invested billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars into Tibet and Xinjiang. Essentially, their idea was make the life of these minorities better and gain the support from the elites in these regions to support the CPC. And it’s worked fantastically, as we’ve talked about in the past.
I’ve been to Tibet and Xinjiang three times, and probably the most optimistic consumers in China are actually the ethnic minorities, the Tibetans and the Uyghurs in these two provinces, because now they have a good quality of life.
Now, what has China done? They’ve done the same thing with Hong Kong. When they took over Hong Kong from the British in 1997, instead of calling it a governor, instead of calling it a mayor, they called the head of Hong Kong the chief executive, because they wanted to show the people of Hong Kong that they were pro business still. Now, here’s what China did — they gave the tycoons like Li Ka Shing, the Quok family, the Chung family, the best property locations in China and helped them make a lot of money. If you look at Huaihai Road or Wangfujing in Beijing, the best prime locations are all controlled by Hong Kong tycoons because basically China wanted to buy their support.
Now it was a lot harder to work in Hong Kong because Hong Kong per capita GDP is higher than mainland China’s, because there’s a lot of Christianity and Cardinal Zen, who was the Catholic cardinal there, was very anti-CPC and would be one of the harshest critics. So it was very hard to buy the support of the Hong Kong people, which is why you saw the protests in 2014 with the umbrella protests and then the terrorism and rioting in 2019.
So China now, though, has been slowly able to succeed in buying the support of Hong Kongers who’ve stayed in Hong Kong by integrating Hong Kong with Greater Bay. I’ve spent a lot of time in Hong Kong in the last six months and Stephen Roach was wrong, 100%. Hong Kong is not dead. It’s booming again. It was the largest IPO market in 2025. It’s electric because China was trying to help the people of Hong Kong through economic benefits.
So that was kind of a long winded answer. But let’s go back to Taiwan.
When it comes to Taiwan, Cyrus, I view that China is trying to give a lot of economic incentives to the people of Taiwan. So in Fujian Province, the province that’s closest to Taiwan, they’ve given housing, education and medical benefits to any Taiwanese compatriots who decide to move to Fujian.
Now, most importantly, you need to look at Taiwan’s political system, which is really divided into two — the DPP, who are currently in charge, and the current president has another five year term. But when you look at the KMT or the Guomindang, they actually have really good relations with the CPC right now. The new chairwoman of the KMT actually earlier this week said she would like to come and meet with Xi Jinping himself. The Vice Chairman of the KMT over the last couple of years has been to China and has been treated like a hero. And even more importantly, Cyrus, is President Ma — the former President of Taiwan — who has come into mainland China, been treated like a hero and met with Xi Jinping himself.
So it’s a long winded answer. But what I expect to happen is China is going to try to dole out more and more economic incentives to the Taiwanese to gain their support like they did in Tibet, Xinjiang, and starting to get in Hong Kong. And they’re going to wait and see. Will the KMT win the presidency in several years? Because then you might be able to get a one country, two systems integration in Taiwan if the KMT is in charge, in the same way that China was able to do it with Hong Kong.
At the end of the day, Cyrus, the Chinese are not warmongering like the Americans. They view that the Taiwanese are their cousins and they don’t want to see any death. So I’m not concerned. Now, you can ask me this in six months and I’m sure some investment banks will do that. And I’ll write that $50,000 check again for a keynote.
Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein looks at the impact the Iran war might have on China if the hostilities go on for two months or more. The fallout might last for years to come, not only for the US but also for China, he tells OAN.
The demands of China’s consumers have changed profoundly, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok, in an interview at CNBC. “People are not just buying things,” she said at CNBC in a phone call. “They’re buying feelings, they’re buying identity, they’re buying a sense of connection.”
CNBC:
“People are not just buying things,” said Ashley Dudarenok, founder of digital consultancy ChoZan told CNBC in a phone call. “They’re buying feelings, they’re buying identity, they’re buying a sense of connection.”…
Over the recent Chinese New Year holiday, data from ChoZan shows that consumers spent significantly less on traditional staples like festive food gifts (known as nian huo), and more on unconventional expenses, like travel experiences and cosmetics compared to the same period in 2023.
“What people used to buy back in the day, like liquor and bulk nuts … were all about social obligations and tradition. Right now, people buy gift boxes, they buy designer toys … and people don’t frown upon that,” Dudarenok said.
This shift from obligatory to more discretionary spending over China’s largest holiday exemplified broader shifts in consumer norms, according to Dudarenok, with Chinese consumers increasingly looking to satisfy desires for personal fulfillment, over more “rational” purchases…
China’s rising costs of living have also dovetailed with record low birth rates in 2025, adding to a growing sense of loneliness among many in the country.
Compounded, these pressures have instilled in the average Chinese consumer “a sense of crisis,” Dudarenok said, pushing many to redirect spending toward things that “bring [them] joy.”
Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein, author ofThe Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order, dives into the upheaval in the Middle East and explains how a possible US financial crisis could make China the world’s largest economy, as he tells in a discussion with David Lin. Chinese feel Trump is the best thing that could happen to China, he adds.
Hong-Kong-based marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok dives into four different social media campaigns Western brands cannot ignore, he explains on her website Chozan. “Successful campaigns in this environment rarely rely on simple advertising. Instead, they’re bespoke experiences: they speak the language of local memes, festivals, and internet jokes, and they invite users to participate rather than passively consume content,” she says
Ashley Dudarenok:
Chinese social media is a fast-moving universe. To understand how brands succeed in this environment, many marketers study Chinese consumer behavior and the digital ecosystems shaping modern retail. With over 1.3 billion WeChat users and more than 1 billion short-video users across platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou, brands can no longer treat the country as an afterthought.
Consumers spend an extraordinary amount of time online. The average Chinese internet user spends over 5 hours per day on mobile internet, much of it on social and video platforms. Just as importantly, trust in social recommendations is high—49% of Chinese consumers say influencer recommendations directly affect their purchasing decisions, far higher than in many Western markets.
By 2026, the Chinese digital landscape will have matured into a dense ecosystem of super-apps, niche forums, and seamless social commerce. Western platforms like Facebook and Instagram remain blocked, while local platforms such as WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu (RedNote) dominate everyday digital life. These platforms operate inside a broader ecosystem of social commerce in China, where consumers discover, discuss, and purchase products without leaving the same app.
Even smaller vertical platforms command massive reach. For example, Xiaohongshu alone surpassed 260 million monthly active users, becoming one of the country’s most influential lifestyle platforms.
Successful campaigns in this environment rarely rely on simple advertising. Instead, they’re bespoke experiences: they speak the language of local memes, festivals, and internet jokes, and they invite users to participate rather than passively consume content.
AI was a keyword in China’s 15th five-year plan, running from 2026 to 2030. “These are kind of concrete examples that big tech companies are taking actions to try to engage everyday people with advanced AI,” said Winston Ma, author of “The Digital War” and adjunct professor in the global AI-digital economy at Bastille Post.
The Bastille Post:
Signs of the AI push are already visible in the private sector. During the country’s recent Spring Festival holiday which marked celebrations for the Chinese New Year, major companies distributed traditional red packets — or lucky money coupons — through AI-driven apps, a consumer-level case study of how policy is meeting practice.
“These are kind of concrete examples that big tech companies are taking actions to try to engage everyday people with advanced AI,” said Winston Ma, author of “The Digital War” and adjunct professor in the global AI-digital economy.
Ma believes that wider adoption of AI among consumers will also generate vast amounts of data, fueling improvements in AI products and services.
“You have more than a billion internet users that are integrated by the same language, same culture, and the same mobile payment. So, every day there is tremendous amount of data accumulated at the digital platforms. So, the next step is to better utilize the data, organize the data, and put the data into work by AI to generate value,” he said.
That value is increasingly visible in intelligent products, most notably robots. At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas back in January, Chinese firms dominated the exhibition floor with machines and high-tech robots of every shape and size, performing not only acrobatic displays but also practical tasks that underscored their commercial potential…
“There will be a huge range of embodied AI. But overall, China has the advantage of the manufacturing process developed here in the “Made in China” expansion the last three decades. Essentially, Chinese manufacturing power can be combined with Chinese open source models to develop a huge industry, relating to industry robots as well as humanoids,” Ma said.
Ma noted that this year’s “two sessions” could extend the technology agenda “Beyond AI,” encompassing quantum computing and biomedicine to lay the groundwork for next-generation industries.
