This article called “China wants to Replace Millions of workers with Robots”

Context about China:

China is the largest producer in manufactured products, like clothes and electronics things.
Much of it depends on low-cost, low-skill labor.
The economic growth has slowed so, the economy evolves and wages continue to rise.
Chinese government is expecting improve its manufacturing industries to become more
technologically advanced and also, its workforce diversify.
So, China is planning a robot revolution. The idea is automate the work of low-paid workers.
(China wants to replace millions of workers with robots). The country needs advanced
robotics to help balance its economic, social and technological ambitions with continued
growth.

The scale and importance of China’s robot ambition were made clear by the President of
People´s Republic of China when he appeared at the country’s first major robotic conference
in Beijing.

The Government’s plan will be crucial to transform China´s economy. This country has
ambitious production goals: the idea is increase to double per capita income by 2020. The
increasement is at least, 6.5 percent annual growth from 2016. The success of this effort
could in turn, affect the vitality of the global economy.

A more comprehensive effort to upgrade China’s manufacturing base, is the program called
“Made in China” , ​announced in May. The idea is to make the country “ an innovative and
green world manufacturing power” by that year. This program was inspired by Germany´s
Industry 4.0 effort, and by other similar efforts​ ​to promote advanced manufacturing in USA.

About robots…

Robots represent a clever solution to make China more tecnologically advanced. If more
robots can be used in manufacturing plants, this would increase efficiency. At the same time,
robots will require advanced sensing, manipulation and intelligence. The drive could help
promote the technical expertise of the rest of workers, who were employed for designing,
building and servicing manufacturing machines.

But some workers will be to be replaced. However, some of the tasks currently done by
humans cannot be easily be automated at low cost. Also, fine manipulation and visual
inspection for example, will require sophisticated hardware and software to mechanize.