ABSTRACT
At its most obvious, the success of the Chinese innovation system consists of the small but growing list of Chinese companies that are not only successful technology companies, often clustered in ICT, but giants of global stature and increasingly household brand names, even in the global North. A sober analysis of the current state of industrial automation in China certainly reveals a picture still far removed from the sci-fi imaginaries of this policy drive's most ardent proponents. Moreover, and of supreme importance, for all the policy sophistication and learning evident in the China 2025 plan, formulated through systematic consultation with leading industry parties, both Chinese and foreign, the equally systematic absence from this policy is any consideration of the position of labour in all this technological upgrading and deliberate replacement of 'man' with 'machine'.
