At a sprawling high-tech trade fair in central China last week, the presence was predominantly Russian—officials, business leaders, and media. The sole American figure was not physically present but rather a booming, disembodied voice belonging to Elon Musk, heard in a Tesla video enthusiastically promoting “humanoid robots.”
Tesla’s exhibit was just one among hundreds at this vibrant gathering, which showcased an impressive, and often whimsical, array of technological breakthroughs. Visitors encountered everything from boxing robots and toilet-cleaning automatons to emotional support robots for seniors, self-driving police vans, and even an autonomous yacht. The event also highlighted China’s fierce electric vehicle market, where over 100 domestic brands are locked in intense competition for market dominance.
The centerpiece of Tesla’s presence at the fourth Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou was its distinctive Cybertruck. This tank-like vehicle, however, remains unavailable for sale in China due to regulatory hurdles. While other Tesla models are sold in the country, their sales have sharply declined, unable to withstand the overwhelming competition from Chinese manufacturers who offer superior technology and significantly lower prices. Notably, only a small fraction of these Chinese EV brands are currently turning a profit.
This massive exhibition, spanning an area larger than 21 football fields, proudly displayed a vast collection of Chinese-made gadgets and innovations. It powerfully illustrated China’s remarkable transformation from a manufacturing hub reliant on cheap labor to an economic powerhouse increasingly fueled by innovation and a commanding grasp of advanced technologies, areas once primarily dominated by the United States.
However, amid escalating global trade tensions and widespread concerns in both developed and developing nations about a surge in Chinese exports, the expo also prompted critical questions: Who exactly will purchase this immense volume of goods, and can the companies producing them genuinely achieve profitability?
The digital expo commenced last Thursday with prominent Chinese officials and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko calling for enhanced global cooperation. Their remarks subtly critiqued the inconsistent attempts by the Trump administration to restrict China’s access to advanced artificial intelligence chips and impede its emergence as a leading high-tech power.
Wang Hao, the Communist Party secretary for Zhejiang Province (where Hangzhou is the capital), highlighted that the digital economy now generates over 50 percent of his province’s total output. Zhejiang, historically known for its agriculture, tea, and silkworms, is now a digital leader. Wang emphasized China’s desire to “work with all parties to explore the new blue ocean of digital trade and write a new chapter of win-win cooperation.”
President Trump, however, has often characterized such cooperation differently, stating that China “has ripped us off and left us for dead,” a sentiment he expressed in April.
For a salesman at the expo, promoting urinal-cleaning robots, this perspective misrepresented the mutual benefits. “Nobody likes cleaning toilets,” he argued, questioning why Chinese robots shouldn’t “do the dirty work” for everyone’s advantage.
His company, Hangzhou Star Species Robotics, has primarily served the domestic market, supplying robots for cleaning washrooms in Chinese railway stations and other public venues. However, he expressed aspirations to expand into international markets.
Though President Trump was not explicitly named, expo organizers clearly aimed to demonstrate the futility of American attempts to isolate China. They proudly announced that 11,000 international buyers had registered, a 64 percent increase from the previous year, underscoring the event’s growing international influence.
A recent Foreign Ministry-organized tour for foreign journalists through Chinese high-tech companies in the Yangtze River Delta conveyed a consistent message: irrespective of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb China’s progress or any economic challenges the country faces, its advancements in AI, robotics, and other digital sectors are forging ahead relentlessly.
“If you get blocked, you can always find another way around,” remarked Kong Fuan, the Communist Party secretary at the Hongqiao Overseas Development Service Center in Shanghai. This government office actively works to attract foreign investment and talent while assisting Chinese companies in their global expansion.
Mr. Kong contrasted China’s approach with that of the United States, which is making it increasingly challenging and costly for companies to recruit foreign workers. “We always open our hands to talent from all over the world,” he affirmed.
China is actively implementing a new visa category specifically designed to simplify the process for graduates of leading universities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to travel to China for academic or business purposes.
Hefei, a city west of Shanghai, has undergone a remarkable transformation from a quiet backwater into a bustling high-tech center. Here, the AI company iFlyTek serves as a powerful testament against Mr. Trump’s policies towards China. Despite being placed on a U.S. blacklist in 2019 during the first Trump administration due to human rights concerns—a move that effectively prevented it from purchasing American products—iFlyTek has continued to innovate, showcasing an extensive array of new products without its ambitions being curtailed.
Since then, the company has relocated to an expansive and strikingly futuristic new office campus, further highlighting its rapid development.
Among its latest innovations are a device capable of grading school exam papers and an AI chatbot that processes spoken questions in several languages, including Chinese, English, and Russian, displaying the responses on a screen. When questioned about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the chatbot mentioned Russian security concerns but also noted President Vladimir V. Putin’s promotion of false propaganda and the use of the war to distract from Russia’s “stagnating economy.”
Cheng Chen, general manager of iFlyTek’s consumer business group overseeing AI translation, clarified that the exam grading machine—which allows teachers to assess papers without manual reading—is not intended to replace educators. Instead, it aims to “help them use their time better on more creative, essential things.”
Chen asserted that intermittent U.S. restrictions on exporting advanced American-made AI chips to China, which she described as “the best for training large language models,” had not negatively impacted iFlyTek. She indicated that the Chinese company Huawei was successfully supplying suitable alternative chips.
With state-owned China Mobile as its largest shareholder, iFlyTek’s share price has more than doubled since the imposition of Trump-era sanctions. Despite recent U.S.-China trade frictions, the company’s market value has shown remarkable resilience.
Further underscoring China’s drive for self-sufficiency, reports last week indicated that the nation’s largest technology firms were prohibited from purchasing advanced AI chips from the American company Nvidia. This move reinforced the perception that China is determined to forge its own path in high-tech development.
Ensuring this capacity for self-reliance has become a fundamental principle of Chinese state policy under its top leader, Xi Jinping. In recent years, Mr. Xi has frequently invoked the phrase “zili gengsheng,” a term popularized by Mao Zedong to advocate for economic autarky, which historically led to disastrous isolation and impoverishment for China. Xi’s modern interpretation, however, aims for independence without complete global detachment.
Mr. Xi’s vision of self-reliance, however, is not intended to isolate China entirely. Instead, it focuses on ensuring the Party maintains control over any foreign elements that might threaten national sovereignty. In a Politburo meeting in April, the president articulated that, within the realm of high-tech innovation, this translates to establishing an “autonomously controllable” ecosystem for AI hardware and software.
Despite these ambitions, the reality of China’s “go-it-alone” strategy faces significant limitations, clearly demonstrated by the strong desire for international sales expressed by many of the high-tech companies at the expo.
China continues to accumulate substantial trade surpluses, which last year contributed nearly half of the nation’s economic growth and partially mitigated the effects of a prolonged property market downturn.
Trade between China and the United States has seen a sharp decline since President Trump assumed office, largely due to tariff-related uncertainties. Nevertheless, China’s total trade surplus is projected to surpass last year’s colossal nearly $1 trillion imbalance.
The question of whether China can truly succeed without the most cutting-edge American AI chips remains a contentious topic. At the Hangzhou expo, Chen Jiaxin, a marketing manager for Unitree Robotics, enthusiastically discussed her company’s advancements in creating human-like robots capable of dancing and boxing. However, she consistently sidestepped inquiries regarding the impact of U.S. export restrictions on chips and broader trade tensions, stating, “It is not convenient to answer.”
Perhaps the most telling example comes from DeepSeek, a relatively small Chinese start-up. Last year, DeepSeek astonished Silicon Valley by introducing a new AI system that, remarkably, achieved capabilities comparable to chatbots developed by industry giants like OpenAI and Google, all while utilizing Nvidia chips and at a fraction of the cost.
DeepSeek maintained a booth at the Hangzhou digital expo, but it remained conspicuously unattended. This might have been a deliberate choice, perhaps to avoid sensitive questions regarding whether the company’s planned release of a new AI model this summer was postponed due to challenges with domestically produced substitute chips. Only a poster bearing its logo was displayed, offering no further details.