BEIJING: Humanoid robots performing martial arts, robotic dogs demonstrating their agility and robots dancing to foreign folk music have become some of the more unusual scenes on foreign leaders’ trips to China this year.
Behind the eye-catching moments is a broader trend: China’s vast market and technological strength are drawing visiting leaders beyond formal talks in Beijing.
The latest is Thongloun Sisoulith, general secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Central Committee and Lao president, who is currently making a five-day state visit to China.
During a trip to DEEP Robotics in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, shortly after his arrival in China on Tuesday, Thongloun operated a robotic dog and praised it as “very good” and “very flexible”.
He also visited the headquarters of Chinese tech company Alibaba Group, where he learned how e-commerce platforms help Lao products reach consumers across the Chinese market. Thongloun is not alone. Earlier this year, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also included Zhejiang in their China itineraries.
The province, long seen as an important window on China’s reform and opening-up, is also one of the first places where the country’s digital economy took root and flourished.
Observers said the visits are more than lighthearted moments or technology showcases on packed diplomatic itineraries. Against the backdrop of global industrial transformation, the trips reflect a conscious choice by countries to embrace China’s innovation drive and connect with its strengths in the digital economy, they said.
Zhejiang has become one of the most visible stops in this process because it allows visiting leaders to see, in one place, how digital platforms, artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced manufacturing are being applied in real industries.
Jian Junbo, a researcher with the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the visits reflect foreign leaders’ recognition of China’s high-tech development, as well as their countries’ desire to work with China and benefit from the momentum of its technological progress.
“They hope to carry out deeper and broader cooperation with China in areas such as sci-tech innovation, education and the application of technological achievements,” Jian said. “The main purpose, and also their expectation, is to help drive the growth and development of their own domestic economies,” Jian added. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
