Editor's note: Liu Chunsheng, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is an associate professor at the Beijing-based Central University of Finance and Economics. The article reflects the author's opinion and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The global industrial chain is undergoing historic restructuring. Amid frequent geopolitical conflicts, soaring energy costs, and worsening supply chain fragmentation, global manufacturing has been mired in unprecedented uncertainty, with many economies facing production halts due to raw material shortages and rising operational expenses. In sharp contrast, China has demonstrated strong economic resilience and stable development momentum, backed by its comprehensive industrial system, reliable production capacity and continuous technological upgrading.

The evolution of Chinese manufacturing

The world has recently re-evaluated China's role in the global industrial landscape, reaching a consensus that the country is climbing up the global value chain and striding away from its traditional label as a low-end "world factory."

For decades, Chinese manufacturing was defined by low-cost, low-value-added original equipment manufacturer production of consumer goods, passively undertaking global low-end industrial transfers and focusing solely on terminal product manufacturing. Locked in the downstream of the global value chain, it lacked core technological dominance and industrial discourse power.

This pattern has now fundamentally changed. As reported by CNN and other international media, China is no longer merely a manufacturing base. Instead, it has emerged as a key exporter of core technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), industrial robots and high-end chips, providing solid technical support and practical solutions for industrial upgrading worldwide.

The essence of this transformation lies in China's shift from exporting finished consumer goods to producing core technologies, advanced manufacturing equipment, complete industrial systems and industrial standards, evolving into a global industrial enabler known as the "factory of factories."

Industrial advantages and financial empowerment

China's transformative upgrading stems from its unparalleled industrial strengths. As the world's only country with all industrial categories in the UN industrial classification system, China has maintained the world's largest manufacturing scale for 15 consecutive years as of 2024, accounting for nearly 30% of global manufacturing value added. Its fully developed industrial ecosystem delivers outstanding resistance to risk. While overseas factories frequently suspend production amid global supply chain shocks, Chinese manufacturers maintain stable operations, ensuring domestic industrial chain stability and absorbing massive global transfer orders.

Unlike the single production-oriented model of the traditional "world factory," the "factory of factories" features full-chain empowerment and systematic global output. Chinese manufacturing's overseas layout has evolved from simple commodity trade to integrated export of technology, equipment, industrial chains, and services. Leading Chinese enterprises in new energy and intelligent manufacturing build overseas industrial parks, driving upstream and downstream supporting enterprises to go global together.

This model helps host countries build local manufacturing systems from scratch, realizing empowering cooperation rather than mere product sales, and serving as a global infrastructure provider for manufacturing industries.

Optimized financial services strongly underpin robust real economy growth. Driven by the Belt and Road Initiative's infrastructure connectivity, China's port, logistics, and cross-border financial settlement networks have developed in coordination.

The Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) has experienced robust growth, with an average daily transaction volume of 920.5 billion yuan ($134.33 billion) in March. The efficient, secure and low-cost CIPS effectively hedges against geopolitical and exchange rate risks, cutting transaction costs for China's cross-border trade, investment and technology export, and forming a hidden core competitive edge for Chinese manufacturing.

In the current global economy, development certainty and supply chain security have replaced cheap labor as the scarcest resources. Turbulent global energy and raw material markets have triggered widespread industrial volatility. In this context, China's stable economy, complete industrial system and reliable delivery capacity generate unique "security dividends," providing all-round support from research and development (R&D) and component supply to integrated industrial solutions for global industrial development.

Chinese strength reshaping global industrial chains

Sustained technological innovation is the core driver of China's industrial upgrading. Breaking away from reliance on low-end processing, China has steadily increased R&D investment and achieved breakthroughs in AI, semiconductors, high-end equipment and new energy sectors.

Transforming from a technology follower to a pioneer, China's intelligent manufacturing technologies and products empower industrial improvement in both developing and developed economies, elevating China from a terminal processor to a pivotal hub in the global industrial chain with greater value chain discourse power.

China's industrial transformation represents a historic reform of the global manufacturing division of labor. The traditional dual pattern, in which developed countries dominate R&D and design while developing countries undertake low-end processing, has long concentrated profits in upstream and downstream links. China's "factory of factories" model breaks this rigid framework. By exporting core manufacturing technologies, advanced equipment and industrial standards, it bridges gaps in global industrial division, fosters a more stable, inclusive and diversified global manufacturing ecosystem, and promotes more balanced global value chain development.

Admittedly, there is still room for China to improve in core technology research, global brand building and international standardization. Nevertheless, its manufacturing competitiveness has achieved qualitative leaps, integrating scale, systematic, technological and resilience advantages to form an irreplaceable global industrial status.

The shift from "world factory" to "factory of factories" marks a qualitative transformation of Chinese manufacturing, from passively adapting to global markets to actively leading global industrial progress. With continuous technological innovation and in-depth cross-border cooperation, Chinese manufacturing will consolidate its core global position, share industrial development dividends with the world, and fuel global economic growth through technological empowerment and win-win cooperation.

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