Connexion
Executive Summary:
On March 20, the Shanghai Stock Exchange accepted a $610 million initial public offering (IPO) application from Unitree Robotics (宇树科技). The Hangzhou-based firm recently claimed the top spot in global humanoid robot shipments, and it showcased its highly dynamic G1 and H2 humanoids “performing” martial arts before hundreds of millions of viewers at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala (Xinhua, February 17; China Brief, March 6). The company’s prospectus disclosed renminbi (RMB) 76 million ($11 million) in tax incentives for the first nine months of 2025 alone, encompassing a reduced corporate income tax rate, research and development super-deductions, and value-added tax refunds. The prospectus also records RMB 32 million ($4.7 million) in direct government grants received between 2022 and September 2025 (Shanghai Stock Exchange, March 20). These figures represent merely the visible edge of a massive state-directed campaign to capture the “commanding heights” (制高点) of embodied artificial intelligence (AI).
Unitree’s IPO arrived immediately after the publication of the 15th Five-Year Plan, which elevated humanoid robotics to a strategic national priority under General Secretary Xi Jinping’s economic mandate of “new quality productive forces” (新质生产力). The document targets embodied AI and humanoid robots as critical “new tracks” (新赛道) for cultivating emerging and future industries (Xinhua, March 13). By pairing its unparalleled manufacturing ecosystem with aggressive state capital, Beijing intends to flood the global market with highly capable, low-cost humanoid platforms to lock in supply chain supremacy before the commercial market fully matures. In this way, Unitree owes its success in part to a multi-layered cultivation architecture that the Party-state applies across all advanced industrial sectors.
MIIT Sets Three-Tier Hierarchy
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) serves as the primary architect of humanoid robotics industrial policy in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In late 2023, the ministry issued the “Guiding Opinion on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots” (人形机器人创新发展指导意见), which formally elevated humanoid robots to the status of a “disruptive product” (颠覆性产品) on par with computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles (MIIT, November 2, 2023). The ministry uses such strategic documents and equipment catalogues to signal intent and direct state capital toward resolving critical technological bottlenecks and driving industrial expansion (China Brief, September 24, 2024).
The guiding opinion established a two-phase timeline with targets for technological achievement and industrial structure. By 2025, the state expected breakthroughs in core components, mass production of complete products, and the cultivation of two or three “ecological enterprises” (生态型企业) with global influence alongside a cohort of “specialized and sophisticated” (专精特新) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). [1] (According to MIIT data, by the end of 2025, over 140 domestic firms and 330 product models were in operation throughout the country, though no formal target assessment has been published to date (MIIT, January 21)). By 2027, MIIT envisions the formation of a completely “safe and reliable supply chain ecosystem” (安全可靠的产业链供应链体系), integrating humanoid robotics into the broader economy as a new engine of growth. The document further directs the cultivation of “chain-leader” (链主) enterprises with global competitiveness, the establishment of open-source communities, and the construction of a national standards system.
The primary mechanism for channeling state resources to strategically positioned firms is the “gradient cultivation system” (梯度培育体系) for premium small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (MIIT, June 1, 2022). This certification framework creates a three-tier hierarchy defining the strategic utility of each participant. It begins with “innovative SMEs” (创新型中小企业) at the local level, advances to provincial-level “specialized and sophisticated SMEs” (专精特新中小企业), and culminates in national-level “little giant” enterprises (专精特新“小巨人”企业), which have mastered technologies in key industrial links to fill supply chain gaps. Unitree holds the “little giant” designation, which makes it eligible for the most generous fiscal support from the state.
Once certified, enterprises unlock a suite of financial, operational and administrative support mechanisms (MIIT, June 1, 2022). Designated SMEs benefit from direct cash rewards and preferential scoring when applying for state-sponsored research and technical transformation grants. These capital injections are complemented by substantial tax relief, including extended loss carryforward periods and reduced income tax rates, alongside prioritized access to government procurement contracts and specialized low-interest bank credit. The central government issued targeted fiscal programs in 2021 and 2024, providing several million renminbi to promote the technological and industrial advancements of “little giant” enterprises (Ministry of Finance, February 2, 2021, June 18, 2024).
This national framework sets a baseline approach, but it is local governments that drive the majority of the sector’s capitalization and industrialization. Localities also compete aggressively to attract robotics firms through distinct policy instruments calibrated to each region’s comparative advantages.
Case Study: Beijing’s Municipal Support Entails Military–Civil Fusion
What distinguishes the PRC’s approach is not any individual subsidy but the accumulation of independent policy instruments. A humanoid robotics firm registered in Beijing that holds the “little giant” designation can simultaneously access over a dozen distinct policy tools, all issued or administered by one local government entity: the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology (EITB; 北京市经济和信息化局). This bureau serves as the local gateway for national R&D programs, organizing Beijing-registered entities to apply for direct funding through the MIIT-sponsored “‘intelligent robots’ key R&D program” (国家重点研发计划“智能机器人”重点专项) (Beijing EITB, December 22, 2025). The bureau also manages the local administration of the gradient cultivation system (Beijing EITB, February 9).
Beyond these foundational layers, the 2026 implementation guide for the bureau’s “high-precision industry development fund” (高精尖产业发展项目资金) alone contains multiple robotics-relevant instruments. These range from awards for new trials and tests to compute voucher subsidies, and from locally managed equity financing to interest subsidies on bank loans (Beijing EITB, February 14). Additional programs beyond the annual fund guide complement these initiatives (Beijing EITB, December 24, 2025, March 30, April 7). [2] At the municipal government level, Beijing’s 2026 economic stabilization measures explicitly name humanoid robotics among the future industries to be cultivated (Beijing Development and Reform Commission, March 18).
Beijing’s approach relies on massive state-owned capital deployed as patient equity (耐心资本). [3] The Shougang Fund (首钢基金), jointly established by the Beijing Municipal Government and the state-owned Shougang Group (首钢集团), serves as the city’s largest market-oriented manager of government-backed industrial funds. Over more than a decade, it has invested in nearly 1,000 innovation projects through over 40 sub-funds, growing its assets under management 100-fold to around RMB 100 billion ($15 billion) (Beijing Daily, February 20, 2023). The Shougang Fund participated in Galbot’s (银河通用机器人) angel round in 2024; investing in a firm that by late 2025 had raised approximately $800 million and was valued at $3 billion—the highest of any PRC embodied intelligence startup (Eastmoney, June 24, 2024; PRNAsia, December 19, 2025).
Cross-City Replication and Competitive Escalation
The policy stack documented in Beijing is not unique to the capital; every major municipality pursuing humanoid robotics has constructed comparable multi-layered cultivation architectures, and cities compete aggressively to outbid one another. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the embodied intelligence sector recorded 210 financing events totaling over RMB 30 billion ($4.2 billion), with Shenzhen leading at 44 deals, Beijing at 40, and Shanghai at 38, followed by Hangzhou at 24 (The Paper, April 7).
Beyond the subsidies and certification instruments described above, each city deploys distinct fiscal tools calibrated to its comparative advantages. Shanghai in 2025 released an “Embodied AI Industry Development Implementation Plan (2025–2028).” Among other things, it targets expanding the city’s core embodied AI industry beyond $7.3 billion by 2027, offering up to $7.3 million per R&D project as well as generous “compute vouchers” (算力券) (Shanghai Municipal Government, August 6, 2025). This environment has attracted the firm AGIBOT (智元机器人), with backing from Shanghai State-Owned Capital Investment (上海国投), and Fourier Intelligence (傅利叶智能), which secured nearly $120 million in state investment (Securities Times, January 8, 2025; Shanghai State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Committee, March 12, 2025). The venture arm of Saudi Aramco also invested in Fourier Intelligence, illustrating a strategy of pairing domestic state funds with sovereign wealth from the Global South to dilute reliance on Western venture capital.
In Hangzhou, the city’s Financial Supervision Administration has focused on capital market acceleration, publishing a list of 315 key enterprises targeted for IPO cultivation in 2025. State-backed industrial funds capitalize these firms during their pre-IPO phases, and government agencies organize each stage of the capital formation process. A prominent example is Deep Robotics (云深处科技), whose $73 million funding round was co-led by Fortune Capital and the China Reform Fund, with participation from the Zhejiang provincial Fuzhe Fund (富浙基金) and the Beijing Robot Industry Development Investment Fund (北京机器人产业发展投资基金) (Securities Times, July 8, 2025).
Shenzhen’s advantage lies in its unparalleled supply chain concentration, which its district governments complements with aggressive fiscal support. Futian District issued a dedicated robotics cluster development program that went into effect in January 2026, while Longgang District operates a dedicated government bureau to administer five subsidy programs for AI and robotics firms (Longgang District Government, September 29, 2025; Futian District Government, December 31, 2025).
Interior cities are also entering the race. In early 2026, Hefei’s state-owned Innovation Investment (合肥创新投资) participated in a $200 million Series B funding round for humanoid robotics firm LimX Dynamics (逐际动力) (LimX Dynamics, February 2). This deployment of capital echoes the municipality’s broader “Hefei model” of leveraging state funds to absorb early-stage risks, the same approach it used to attract electric vehicle firm NIO (蔚来汽车) (China Brief, February 6).
Dominance Through International Standards and Defense Industry Cooperation
As the fiscal engine cultivates firms, the standardization regime harvests them—including for the purposes of national defense. The National Humanoid Robot Standardization Technical Committee, established by MIIT in November 2025, selected Unitree founder Wang Xingxing (王兴兴) and AGIBOT co-founder Peng Zhihui (彭志辉) as vice chairmen alongside representatives of a core defense conglomerate, U.S.-sanctioned firms, and defense universities (MIIT, November 24, 2025; China Brief, December 18, 2025). [4]
At the standardization committee’s founding meeting, MIIT Vice Minister Ke Jixin (柯吉欣) stated that the committee should set international standards and promote the international competitiveness of PRC robotics technology. Chinese Electronics Society (中国电子学会) president Xu Xiaolan (徐晓兰) similarly called for building a “dominant-type standard system” (主导型标准体系) (Posts & Telecom News, December 31, 2025). By defining domestic standards first and achieving economies of scale within the world’s largest robotics market, the PRC positions itself to project those standards through international bodies.
The same entities that implement industrial policy for robotics firms is fused with the apparatus that manages defense science and technology industry. For instance, the director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology discussed above, Jiang Guangzhi (姜广智), is simultaneously director of the Beijing Municipal Defense Science and Technology Industry Office (北京市国防科学技术工业办公室) (Beijing EITB, accessed April 12). This structure is emulated at the central level, where MIIT Vice Minister Shan Zhongde (单忠德) is also dual-hatted as the current director of the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) (SASTIND, accessed April 12).
Publicly available procurement records further illustrate the overlap between the commercial and defense sectors. In early 2026, Beihang University’s School of Astronautics (宇航学院) procured “core components” (核心配件) for humanoid robots, including 29 customized motors, high-computing power modules, 3D radar systems and motion control units totaling RMB 209,000 ($30,000) (Beihang University Procurement Platform, January 26). Beihang is one of the “Seven Sons of National Defense” and has been on the U.S. Entity List since 2001 for its role in supporting military modernization. The component specifications in the procurement document, particularly high-computing power modules and 3D radar systems, exceed typical educational requirements and are consistent with defense-applicable research.
Conclusion
The PRC’s approach to humanoid robotics relies on a multi-layered cultivation architecture. Qualifying firms enter a strict gradient system where different local governments deploy distinct combinations of state capital and regulatory privileges to accelerate their commercialization. As these enterprises achieve market viability, the national standardization regime systematically locks their founders into institutional processes, integrating commercial technological breakthroughs with the state’s broader strategic apparatus. Ultimately, this architecture does not require a firm’s active willingness to serve state or defense purposes. It requires only that commercial actors respond rationally to the incentive structures the Party-state has built.
What distinguishes this architecture from industrial policy approaches in other countries is that the bureau that issues compute vouchers is the same institution as the office coordinating defense procurement. Both are staffed by the same individuals. In major industrial democracies, institutional separation functions as a firewall; in the PRC, such a firewall does not exist. Every firm cultivated through this system is, by default, within organizational reach of the defense apparatus, and no additional transfer mechanism is required. Current Western policy tools, calibrated to target individual enterprises rather than the institutional infrastructure producing them, do not reach this layer (War on the Rocks, April 7).
Notes
[1] The Chinese policy term “专精特新” is a four-character formulation—specialized (专), refined (精), distinctive (特) and innovative (新)—that describes the qualities the state cultivates in strategically positioned SMEs. English-language government sources vary in their rendering of the formulation: Xi Jinping’s 2022 congratulatory letter to the National Conference on Specialized and Sophisticated SME Development used “specialized and sophisticated SMEs that produce novel and unique products” (China Daily, December 9, 2025); while the Beijing Municipal Foreign Affairs Office’s authoritative “Understanding Beijing” translation series renders it as “specialized, high-end, and innovation-driven” (Beijing Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, June 29, 2023). The acronym “SRDI” (Specialized, Refined, Differentiated, Innovative) circulates widely in English-language academic literature on Chinese industrial policy but is not used in any Chinese official English-language document.
[2] A sample of incentives found in the fund guide are as follows:
[3] “Patient capital” (耐心资本), is state-aligned, long-term funding immune to immediate market cycles.
[4] Wang had signed an open letter in 2022 pledging not to weaponize his robots (Boston Dynamics, October 6, 2022). He now shapes the technical parameters against which his own products will be evaluated, sitting alongside defense-linked and sanctioned entities.
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Under General Secretary Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made technology competition the focus of its long-term struggle against the West. The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) has codified the fusion of national planning, security strategy, and technological control under Xi’s direct command. The plan, whose early chapters are dedicated to building a modern industrial system, accelerating tech self-reliance and cultivating new productive forces, and deepening informatization and intelligentization, highlights a range of priority high-tech sectors. These include artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, biotechnology, connected devices and the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and open-source technologies, among others. The Party believes that seizing the “commanding heights” in these areas is critical to ensuring long-term dominance (Xinhua, March 13).
Xi has directed the Party-state system to advance a whole-of-nation approach to promoting strategic sectors. This is seen in the mechanisms embedded in the Party’s seven national development strategies, of which the military–civil fusion development strategy the most important, coordinating the system to diffuse innovation throughout the pillars of the Party’s power. It also involves boosting competitiveness through securing supply chains, promoting innovation, and ensuring that critical technologies remain in reliable hands. “Reverse constrainment,” or the selective weaponization of trade, has emerged as one tactic to adapt to the competitive international environment; but the Party deploys a variety of other tools in pursuit of supply chain sovereignty, technological dominance, and ultimately victory in international technological competition.
Looking forward to 2030, Xi is preparing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for sustained confrontation. State investment, flexible regulatory environments, and courting foreign capital support reliable supply chains. “Command innovation,” or state investment in targeted sectors, serves the Party’s goal of global technological dominance. The CCP hopes that these strategies, combined with its weaponization of trade dependencies, will create the conditions necessary for victory in U.S.–PRC competition.
Selected Jamestown Analysis:
A humanoid robot, developed by Shenzhen-based UBTech, operating in a BYD factory. (Source: CnEVPost)
Strategic Industries
Selected Jamestown Analysis:
Members of the People’s Liberation Army in Tiananmen Square after the opening session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). (Source: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
PLA and Military–Civil Fusion
Selected Jamestown Analysis:
Customs officials inspect 306 CPUs that a traveler had attempted to smuggle into the People’s Republic of China. (Source: Gongbei Customs)
Technology Transfer and Global Partnerships
Selected Jamestown Analysis:
The opening ceremony of the 2024 Central Asia Digital Security Expo. (Source: CIAAE)
Censorship, Surveillance, and Information Manipulation
Selected Jamestown Analysis:
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Executive Summary:
Every year, hundreds of millions of Chinese families gather together to celebrate the Lunar New Year. For many, an obligatory part of the festivities is the Spring Festival Gala (春晚), hosted and broadcast by China Media Group, the main state media corporation in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This year’s spectacle lasted over four hours, featuring 49 segments of singing, dancing, comedic sketches, and other performances (Xinhua, February 16). The gala is a carefully planned and choreographed event. In addition to its entertainment value, it is engineered to highlight the government’s accomplishments in the past year and share the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) priorities with the country’s 1.4 billion citizens, as well as the millions of Chinese people overseas.
Technology was the main theme this year. This comes as no surprise, as central government policy over the past 12 months has emphasized technological development and the adoption and diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) across the country (China Brief, September 21, 2025, November 3, 2025).
High-Tech Takes Center-Stage
AI adoption and diffusion was evident throughout the program. It even found its way into comedy sketches. Combining short sketches (小品) and crosstalk (相声), one segment made fun of a young couple for being excessively glued to their phones and highlighted how AI algorithms could influence their relationship. Beyond comedy, AI was advertised extensively throughout the show to the hundreds of millions of live viewers. Doubao (豆包), ByteDance’s (字节跳动) AI assistant, was the “AI partner” of the evening, and “assisted” the announcers in between performances. When they downloaded the application onto their smartphones, viewers at home were offered raffle prizes such as robots made by top robotics firm Unitree and drones made by flagship drone manufacturer DJI (South China Morning Post, February 11). Doubao reported over 1.9 billion user interactions during the broadcast—an order of magnitude more than the number of viewers for commercials advertising U.S. AI companies during the Superbowl the previous week (Caixin, February 18).
The year 2025 was the first in which the central government’s work plan included a reference to embodied AI. State media explicitly linked this prominence to humanoid robotics performances during this year’s gala, which were framed as a “window [on]to China’s industr[ial] policies” (CGTN, February 17). This was not the first robotics performance at a Lunar New Year gala, which has become a custom in the last decade. For instance, last year’s included a northern Chinese dance. But this year’s was the most technically impressive to date. During a martial arts display in which robots performed a choreographed fight against human martial artists, the robots could be seen executing stunts, such as a backflip off a wall. The evolution of the gala’s robotics sketches also provide insights into Chinese peoples’ changing views about the role of technology in their lives and how they are reacting and adapting to government priorities. For example, in another comedy sketch, a grandmother criticized her grandson for not visiting her, instead professing a preference for her humanoid robot “grandsons” that had been taking care of her in his place. This lighthearted segment subtly engaged with traditional social customs, while also signaling awareness of social and demographic issues that the country is currently grappling with.
Besides technology and AI, the gala also hit other national priorities, including manufacturing. Gala organizers chose to highlight Yiwu, a county-level city in Zhejiang province best known for its manufacturing and e-commerce sectors. The announcers touted key manufacturing statistics and encouraged viewers to go out and spend more, in line with the government incentives issued at the New Year to lift consumption levels (Xinhua, February 12).
Longstanding Gala Segments Receive Less Attention
Each year, the gala includes a military segment. This year was no different, featuring a section that was army-heavy and featured People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Army soldiers stationed in Qinghai Province. The troops assured the audience that the frontier was well-defended and that people would not have to worry about their own safety. But aside from this obligatory PLA song segment and a small clip of the September 2025 military parade, military strength was not in the foreground, providing no indication that the CCP is preparing its population for war. Perhaps this is due to a desire to emphasize other priorities. But it could also reflect a need to minimize attention on an organization that has been beset with corruption scandals in recent months (China Brief, January 26). The country’s space program, meanwhile, which has been featured in performances and transition segments in recent years, was omitted from the event altogether.
Other segments touched on a range of themes that the Party views as important. Agriculture and food security, for instance, were celebrated by touting the biggest grain harvest on record (Global Times, January 22). Ethnic unity, another common theme, was demonstrated with a children’s fashion show. Children from each of the country’s official 55 ethnic minority groups catwalked down a runway in their respective culture’s traditional clothes—a common way in which official media tends to portray minority cultures. Traditional culture was also celebrated in the form of Peking opera, traditional instruments like the pipa, historic calligraphy, and Han dynasty statues of horses.
The Gala closes every year with the song “Tonight is Unforgettable” (难忘今宵), but this year’s performance featured a new arrangement with stronger pop music elements. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was an appearance by John Legend, who sang his 2013 hit “All of Me,” as well as a Disney theme song with French singer Hélène Rollès. This was the second year in a row that an American artist participated in the Gala, as it seeks to draw in a wider international audience and attempts to signal the country’s openness in the upcoming year.
Conclusion
This content of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala indicated that national leaders are in an ebullient mood when it comes to the country’s advances in AI and robotics. After years of investment, these industries took center stage, as the PRC continues to portray itself as at the cutting edge of modernity. The annual event is a useful signal for gauging the national mood and policy priorities, even if it is not an explicitly political event. This year’s affair held few surprises, but it indicated that observers should expect more of the same in the coming year in terms of economic priorities: more promotion of AI, more commercialization of robotics, and continued efforts to promote domestic consumption and drive exports.
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Executive Summary:
In November, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced the creation of the National Humanoid Robot Standardization Technical Committee (国家人形机器人标准化技术委员会) (MIIT, November 24). This followed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee’s designation of the technology as a focus area in its recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan (Xinhua, October 28). Although framed as a technical coordination mechanism, the unusual size and cross-sector composition of the committee reflect a desire to build a humanoid robotics sector around the principles of dual-use integration, centralized control, and alignment with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) modernization priorities.
Engineering a Centralized Ecosystem
The committee comprises 65 members drawn from MIIT, MIIT-affiliated standards bodies, defense-linked universities, cryptography and industrial security institutions, emergency-management organs, regional state-backed innovation centers, and major technology firms. Its cross-domain composition reflects an effort to collapse the boundaries between research, commercialization, and state security oversight.
The committee is chaired by Xie Shaofeng (谢少锋), MIIT’s chief engineer (总工程师). Liang Liang (梁靓), the committee’s secretary-general, responsible for shaping its agenda and building consensus within the group, is currently a deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics (中国电子学会), an academic and industry organization directly under the ministry (CIE, accessed December 17). Liang is also one of five vice chairs on the committee.
The other four vice chairs further underscore this orientation. Alongside Wang Xingxing (王兴兴) and Peng Zhihui (彭志辉), the founders of leading robotics firms Unitree and Agibot, respectively, the MIIT has tapped the leaders of two state-backed regional humanoid platforms. These include Jiang Lei (江磊) of the Humanoid Robotics (Shanghai) (人形机器人（上海）有限公司) and Xiong Youjun (熊友军) of UBTECH (优必选) and the Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics (北京人形机器人创新中心), the PRC’s first humanoid robotics center (Beijing Daily, April 9, 2024). [1] These entities function as national–local industrial vehicles, capable of rapidly translating standards into procurement rules, testing regimes, and large-scale pilot deployments.
Defense Industry Presence Indicates Dual-Use Requirements
Defense-industrial interests on the committee are most explicit in the participation of Fan Chang (范昶) from the 43rd Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC). CETC underpins PLA electronic warfare, ISR, and command systems, and multiple CETC subsidiaries appear on U.S. military-industrial complex lists (China Brief, February 21, 2012; Treasury, December 16 2021). The 43rd Institute holds national, defense, and military laboratory certifications and has supported major military aerospace programs (Anhui University[DY1] , September 18, 2018, SASTIND, June 13, 2019; The Paper, May 4, 2020). Its proximity to venture-backed robotics firms exemplifies military–civil fusion in practice.
Figure 1: Military–Civil Fusion Elements in National Humanoid Robot Standardization Technical Committee
(Source: Created by the author)
The committee is also well represented by the “Seven Sons of National Defense” (国防七子)—universities deeply embedded in the PRC’s defense research ecosystem. Committee members include Wei Hongxing (魏洪兴) of Beihang University (北京航空航天大学), Yang Yi (杨毅) of the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT; 北京理工大学), Wang Yulin (王禹林) of the Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NUST; 南京理工大学). [2] Han Peng (韩鹏) of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC; 电子科技大学) was also appointed to the committee. Although UESTC is not a “Seven Sons” university, it has a history of working on military and dual-use research. For example, recently it has been working with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC[DY2] ) Chengdu Aircraft Research and Design Institute to design advanced military drones (Red Star News, January 12, 2023). Their collective presence suggests that humanoid robotics standards likely will be influenced by military requirements. This will enable the creation of robots with characteristics essential for policing, military logistics, and operations in contested environments. These might include capabilities for electromagnetic resilience and secure communications. In effect, the process for creating standards is set to ensure that humanoid robots are dual-use by design.
Other committee members represent organizations under the Party’s paramilitary organ, the People’s Armed Police. Han Zhenfeng (韩震峰), for instance, works for the National Natural Disaster Prevention and Control Research Institute (应急管理部国家自然灾害防治研究院) at the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM) (MEM, accessed December 14). Robots involved in disaster response activities such as rubble clearance, operating in hazardous environments and settings where communications have been degraded, could support PLA urban operations and logistics (MIIT, December 29, 2023; Market News, November 9). Framing these capabilities under emergency management allows for testing and refining paramilitary robotics, including via overseas humanitarian deployments, while avoiding the scrutiny associated with explicit military programs.
Cryptography and Cybersecurity Requirements Embed Control
The PRC’s cryptographic and industrial cybersecurity community are also represented on the committee. One member, Zhu Hao (朱浩), leads the Technical Standardization Research Institute (标准化技术研究所) at the China Academy of Industrial Internet (CAII; 中国工业互联网研究院). Also known as the MIIT Cryptography Application Research Center (工信部密码应用研究中心), this entity was created to implement the 2019 Cryptography Law (密码法) and promote domestic cryptographic standards across industry (NPC, June 4, 2023). While officially tasked with innovation, the center enforces mandatory commercial cryptography regimes (商用密码) that govern identity management, key control, and secure communications (MIIT, January 22, 2020; CAII, April 30).
Zhu’s role indicates that humanoid robots manufactured in the PRC will be subject to cryptographic requirements that will limit interoperability with foreign platforms and could facilitate regulatory—and potentially supervisory—access under the PRC’s national security framework. This is reinforced by another member, Li Wei (李卫), who is the deputy director of the Institute for AI (人工智能所) at the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center (国家工业信息安全发展研究中心), which supports the PRC’s critical information and data infrastructure protection regime (National Business Daily, May 24, 2024). His inclusion reflects a view that humanoid robots play a critical role in the PRC’s technological statecraft that should be subject to centralized vulnerability management, security audits, and lifecycle governance.
Sanctioned Entities Setting Standards
U.S. authorities have already sanctioned several entities represented on the committee. SenseTime, represented by Wang Xiaogang (王晓刚), is on the U.S. Commerce Department Entity List and the Treasury’s Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies (NS-CMIC) List for enabling mass surveillance and human rights abuses through facial recognition technologies (Treasury, December 10, 2021). Huawei and ZTE, both long-standing entity list designees, are also represented on the committee. Their robotics work to date has focused on the communications and network hardware and software that govern robotic fleets (Cnyes, March 6; ZTE, August 7). China Mobile, represented on the committee via a Hangzhou subsidiary, is viewed as a Chinese Military Company by the U.S. Department of Defense due to its role in supporting state and military communications infrastructure (DoD, January 7).
Conclusion
The National Humanoid Robot Standardization Technical Committee is best understood as a strategic coordination mechanism, not a neutral technical forum. In the PRC, standards determine security compliance, procurement eligibility, and long-term ecosystem lock-in. By creating a single body to coordinate regional robotics platforms, defense universities, cryptographic authorities, emergency-management organs, and sanctioned national champions, Beijing is shaping a sector optimized for dual-use deployment, centralized control, and rapid national mobilization.
Once the sector begins to export its products around the world, there is a danger that prevailing standards will favor the PRC’s technology ecosystem and will be underpinned by assumptions—particularly around surveillance—that Western authorities deem problematic.
Notes
[1] These two organizations appear to go by several different names in both English and Chinese. The names used here are the ones used in the MIIT list (MIIT, November 24).
[2] Beihang supports PLA aerospace platforms, missiles, and unmanned systems; BIT is the country’s leading hub for ground warfare systems and autonomous weapons integration; NUST descends from the PLA Institute of Military Engineering and remains central to ballistics and explosives research; and UESTC anchors the PRC’s electronic warfare, radar, and secure communications.
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