*“We have to face the fact that countries are going to lose jobs to robotics. The only question that needs to be answered is which country will create and own the best robotic technology and have the infrastructure necessary to enable it.” – Mark Cuban *(a quote from around 2016)
Geopolitical forecasts long predicted that China would hit a wall. Its aging population, accelerated by the one-child policy, was expected to stall economic growth and diminish global influence. Yet paradoxically, China continues to expand its footprint in labor-intensive exports like toys and textiles. The reason is not demographic, but technological. China now installs nearly 295,000 industrial robots annually, accounting for 54% of global deployments (World Robotics Report, 2025). In contrast, t…
*“We have to face the fact that countries are going to lose jobs to robotics. The only question that needs to be answered is which country will create and own the best robotic technology and have the infrastructure necessary to enable it.” – Mark Cuban *(a quote from around 2016)
Geopolitical forecasts long predicted that China would hit a wall. Its aging population, accelerated by the one-child policy, was expected to stall economic growth and diminish global influence. Yet paradoxically, China continues to expand its footprint in labor-intensive exports like toys and textiles. The reason is not demographic, but technological. China now installs nearly 295,000 industrial robots annually, accounting for 54% of global deployments (World Robotics Report, 2025). In contrast, the European Union, while strong in academic research output, struggles to convert scientific excellence into industrial power. It trails both the United States and China in business R&D investment, patent generation, and the emergence of globally competitive tech firms in strategic sectors such as ICT and artificial intelligence (Veugelers, 2024). China alone accounts for nearly half of all AI-related patents globally. The increasing use of industrial robots together with developments in, primarily AI, are not merely replacing workers; they are reconfiguring the very logic of industrial power.
This shift carries global consequences. Countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, and India race to industrialize through labor-intensive growth with several African nations, including Morocco, Egypt, and South Africa, pursuing similar paths. But the ladder they hope to climb may vanish. If China can dominate labor-intensive exports without labor, the strategic leverage once tied to population size and wage competitiveness begins to erode. It seems that industrial power will be determined by automated production, logistics, sales channels, and infrastructure. The robotic dividend is not just an economic innovation; it is a geopolitical recalibration.
China’s ascent followed a well-worn path: a swelling working-age population, mass migration from rural to urban centers, and export-led industrialization. This was the demographic dividend, a phase where labor abundance translated into global competitiveness. But such dividends are not automatic; they require foresight and deliberate policy. China invested heavily in health, education, and employment infrastructure, converting demographic potential into sustained economic momentum. The result was transformative: hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty, and China emerged as the world’s factory.
The demographic dividend traditionally unfolds in four stages. First, high birth and death rates produce a large youth population and a high dependency ratio, limiting economic growth. In the second stage, death rates fall first and then birth rates follow, the working-age population expands, lowering the dependency ratio and opening a window for investment in education and employment. The third stage marks the peak dividend: most of the population is of working age, productivity and savings rise, and rapid economic growth becomes possible. Finally, in the fourth stage, the population ages, the workforce shrinks, and the dependency ratio rises again, shifting the economy toward services and care in what we refer to as the demographic challenge.
This arc, from agriculture to industry to services, has defined the developmental trajectory of most advanced economies. Societies first harnessed the productivity of the land, then leveraged industrialization to drive urbanization and mass employment, and ultimately transitioned to service-based economies characterized by innovation, information, and complex global supply chains. Each stage brought shifts in labor, technology, and social organization, shaping not only economic output but also the very fabric of daily life. A parallel arc exists in environmental impact: degradation intensifies during industrialization, peaks after production surges, but the situation then improves as economies shift toward services. This is reflected in the changing focus of environmental NGOs, from local pollution in the 1960s–2000s to global climate concerns today.
Today, most developed nations face similar dilemmas: fertility rates are falling and migration from low-income countries is increasingly politicized. China’s journey at first mirrored this arc, but its trajectory is now diverging. China’s demographic dividend has expired. Since 2012, its working-age population has declined, and labor-intensive employment has dropped by 25% since 2011 (OECD, 2025). Yet China continues to lead in labor-intensive exports, not through cheap labor, but through automation. Its robotic dividend replaces its former demographic advantage with technological scale. Chinese parliamentarians visiting Sweden described already 2010 how China planned, as a society, to tunnel directly from the agricultural-based society to a service-dominated economy, without fully passing the industrial state. The main motive stated at the time was environmental. If China with its massive population would reach peak environmental impact, the results would be catastrophic for everybody, most notably also for the Chinese. Reasons aside, and these may change over time, this grand strategy is now fueling a rise in geopolitical power. Unlike Japan or South Korea, China is automating at middle-income status and at global scale. It substitutes labor with machines before reaching high-income status, automating both low- and high-end production, including logistics and shipping.
China’s robotic dividend is not only about scale, but also about control. In 2024, Chinese robot manufacturers captured 57% of the domestic market across industries, up from 47% the previous year. This shift reflects not just competitiveness, but strategic autonomy. Domestic suppliers are expanding into new sectors, with robot installations in food and beverage surging 86% year-on-year to 8,900 units, 80% of which were supplied by Chinese firms. In textiles, leather, and apparel, installations rose to 5700 units, all provided by Chinese manufacturers, accounting for 95% of global installations in that category. The wood products sector saw a record 4300 units installed, with China representing 91% of global deployments (IFR 2025b).
The development ladder is compressing. What was once a sequential journey, from cheap labor to manufacturing and eventually to services, is now increasingly simultaneous and detached from human labor. Automation and robotics enable economies to leapfrog stages or bypass human labor at large. A surplus of poor people, once seen as a potential labor force, no longer guarantees industrial growth; instead, it risks becoming a demographic dead-end. Likewise, a surplus of affluent consumers can become a trap if production outpaces demand or becomes decoupled from domestic consumption. In this new paradigm, power no longer resides in labor or consumption, but in the control of automated production systems, data flows, and algorithmic governance. This shift marks a fundamental reordering of industrial logic, one where strategic advantage is measured not by population size, but by technological sovereignty.
Historical parallels are rare but instructive. From the Luddites resisting mechanization to Cold War tech races, technological transitions have always reshaped power. China’s robotic dividend marks a similar inflection point. It controls both mass production and cutting-edge innovation, challenging the conventional development model. Jobs are no longer relocating from high-cost economies to low-cost ones; they are disappearing into machines. Even if production units are placed abroad, ownership and control remain Chinese. Emerging economies face a dilemma: leap into automation without mass employment or remain trapped as supplier of natural resources. This dynamic creates structural dependencies: the global south as supplier, China as producer, and the global north as consumer, but increasingly without leverage.
China may be reimagining its ancient identity as Zhongguo, the “central state”, not through territorial conquest, but through control of production. This is not Marxist control of the means of production, but a form of neo-mercantilist dominance, where industrial capacity and weaponizing trade interdependence, disconnected from a country’s population, becomes the currency of global influence. The robotic dividend is not merely a story of efficiency; it is a story of strategic resilience. In a world of aging populations and geopolitical fragmentation, the next great dividend will not come from demographics, but from technology. The metric of power is no longer how many workers a nation has, but how many tasks it can automate, and how rapidly it can reconfigure its production systems to adapt to shifting global conditions.
For smaller, high-income nations like Sweden, China’s robotic dividend marks a fundamental shift in the global industrial order, one that demands urgent and strategic adaptation. Sweden has already climbed the development ladder and possesses a strong industrial base and a well-established culture of innovation. In 2024, it was ranked as the world’s second most innovative country by the Global Innovation Index. To remain competitive, Sweden’s universities and research institutes must take a leading role in advancing robotics and automated production technologies. The strategic imperative is clear: transform scientific findings into industrial power (Veugelers, 2024). In this domain, Sweden holds a genuine opportunity to shape the future of high-tech manufacturing. Equally critical is the national education system, which must produce a new generation of engineers and technical specialists equipped to design, implement, and manage complex automated systems.
Automation will inevitably reshape labor markets across the globe. Similar stresses have emerged in every country transitioning through the four stages of the demographic dividend. But this time, the driving force is not demographic, it is technology. And in this transformation, China is leading the way.
This leadership is not the result of luck or chance, but of a deliberate strategy grounded in economics, technological investment, and geopolitical foresight. Just as empires once rose through mastery of ships and steel, and superpowers through control of oil and data, the next strategic frontier is automation, powered by robotics and AI. Those who dominate this domain will not only shape global markets but also define the rules by which others must play.