In May 2015, China launched a 10-year plan, called Made in China 2025, to modernize its factories with advanced manufacturing technologies, such as robotics, 3-D printing and the Industrial Internet. But no matter how much money it spends, China simply can’t win with next-generation manufacturing. This will get worse because advanced manufacturing requires management and communication skills and the ability to operate complex information-based factories. Ernst predicts that the increasing scarcity of specialized skills may be the Achilles’ heel of China’s push into advanced manufacturing and services. Yes, it won’t employ the numbers of workers that old-line manufacturing did, but advanced manufacturing will create hundreds of thousands of high-skilled, high-paying jobs.

Source: Washington Post August 26, 2016 17:35 UTC