By Hasan Muhammad

Editor's Note: The writer is a freelance columnist on international affairs based in Karachi, Pakistan. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of China Economic Net.

For decades, China’s manufacturing prowess was measured in gargantuan output: shipyards that could swallow cities, assembly lines that seemed to stretch into infinity, and export volumes that made entire continents twitch with anxiety. But in 2025, the calculus is shifting. In place of sheer scale, Beijing’s industrial strategists are now peddling a different metric - the alchemy of design, technology, and cultural cachet. “Made in China” is undergoing an image makeover, swapping its reputation for cheap ubiquity with one for high-tech craftsmanship and stylistic ambition.

The old model, fuelled by low costs and export surpluses, is giving way to an ecosystem where aesthetic design, intelligent production, and cultural branding are as critical as manufacturing muscle. In the first half of 2025, China’s high-tech sectors, from 3D printing to personalized electric vehicles, surged ahead, helped by consumer markets that increasingly expect their gadgets and goods to be both smart and stylish.

International observers, including JP Morgan, have started documenting this evolution. These developments are symptoms of an industrial re-engineering in which design premiums are rewriting the value chain. The 14th Five-Year Plan has tightened intellectual property protections, with China’s IP royalties trade growing at an average annual rate of 5.7 per cent between 2020 and 2024. In the World Intellectual Property Organization’s 2024 Global Innovation Index, China ranked 11th, ahead of all other middle-income economies.

If this sounds like a fashion-driven detour, it isn’t. High-end equipment manufacturing and industrial systems are also being re-imagined through the design lens. Last month’s China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing featured humanoid robots, bionic hands, and other gadgets where industrial design was inseparable from engineering. From concept to process optimization to business model, the design ethos is seeping into every stage.

Artificial intelligence is turbocharging this transformation. At IAT, for instance, engineers now use voice prompts and AI to generate styling concepts, cutting design cycles in half. China’s AI industry topped 700 billion yuan in 2024, growing more than 20 per cent annually. Far from being a foreign-imported tool, AI is becoming a native asset: in July, Chinese AI firms formed alliances to strengthen domestic ecosystems in defiance of U.S. export controls.

Healthcare is another frontier. The National Medical Products Administration’s July 2025 measures target high-end devices - AI-driven diagnostics, surgical robots, advanced imaging - with faster approvals and incentives for innovation. This is precision medicine with an industrial policy accent, aimed at both domestic needs and global competitiveness.

Rhodium Group’s May 2025 scorecard on the “Made in China 2025” plan is blunt: in electric vehicles, China commands 58 per cent of global sales; in biomedicine, domestic innovative drugs have exceeded targets; in shipbuilding, China holds nearly three-quarters of the order book for green fuel-powered ships. Semiconductors are advancing, but here the caveats begin. For all the progress, innovation capacity still lags industrial expansion. Talent shortages, limited design investment, and a fixation on short-term profits are stubborn obstacles.

The remedies - better incentives, stronger IP enforcement, valuation systems that reward originality, and interdisciplinary training for intelligent manufacturing - are familiar, but urgency matters. McKinsey predicts China’s automation industry could claim more than one-third of the global market this year, propelled by industrial internet platforms and AI “large models.” If realized, that would amount to the kind of leapfrog growth policymakers dream about.

Ironically, Washington’s technology controls have added fuel to this drive. Rather than slowing China down, they have sharpened its appetite for self-reliance. Foreign investors seem to have noticed: a quarter of surveyed firms plan to increase their China commitments in 2025, particularly in high-end sectors.

What emerges from all this is not merely a shift in manufacturing priorities, but a redefinition of the very phrase “industrial power.” China’s leaders appear intent on ensuring that the country’s next industrial chapter is not written in the language of volume alone, but in the idiom of creativity and technical finesse.