China’s Industrial Policy Drives Boom in Eldercare Robots

Beijing is dramatically pushing eldercare robots as part of its national development plans to promote advanced manufacturing.  But it is unclear how effective such policies will be in responding to China’s mounting eldercare needs, particularly in rural China.

Central authorities have promoted robotics and technology as part of efforts to reform China’s eldercare services for nearly a decade.  Such language featured in State Council opinions issued in both 2016 and 2021.  And it cropped up again in the joint opinion issued in December 2024 by the Communist Party’s Central Committee and State Council, which emphasizes the need to develop “humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence and other technological products” as part of expanding China’s eldercare services. 

Simultaneously, China’s state-run media has seen a boom in reporting on these developments. China Daily wrote that “with a rapidly aging population, technology is being used to make up for a shortfall in resources.” The Global Times and Xinhua also published on eldercare robots: “China is witnessing a rapid integration of artificial intelligence and robotics into eldercare services, offering innovative solutions to the challenges of an aging population.”

But an examination of relevant policy documents suggests that the interest of Chinese authorities in this field is being driven by their desire for economic growth and manufacturing prowess, rather than a carefully considered evaluation of eldercare needs.

Naturally, Beijing has a long-standing interest ramping up its manufacturing capacities, set out in the State Council’s national strategic plan, Made in China 2025.  Released back in 2015, this was a comprehensive industrial plan to upgrade China’s manufacturing capacities in fields including green vehicles, batteries, and robotics.  Beijing viewed this exclusively through the lens of national security and economic development. The plan itself notes: “Building an internationally competitive manufacturing industry is the only way for China to enhance its comprehensive national strength, safeguard national security and build a world power.”  It makes no mention of China’s demographic shifts, nor its aging population.

The relative priorities of China’s central officials are clear in looking at China’s 2021 five-year plan, which maps out national goals through 2035. Consistent with Beijing’s interest in economic growth and industrial policy, the plan devotes extensive sections to innovation, manufacturing, and the digital economy.  Addressing China’s demographic challenges are squeezed into a small subsection buried under “improving population quality.”  Eldercare gets even less attention, just a tiny subsection within that already minor section.

Central interest in particular manufacturing goals appears to translate into specific eldercare proposals.  Take, for example, the 2024 central opinion flagging the need to develop humanoid robots in eldercare.  That neatly follows a 2023 joint opinion by the ministries of industry and information technology instructing officials to support the development of humanoid robots as a next-generation disruptive industry to follow computers and electric vehicles.

All of this resembles the blueprint of an East Asian developmental state laser-focused on economic growth and technology, in which eldercare is valued more in terms of its market potential or ability to serve as a testing ground for new products. 

This has deep parallels elsewhere in East Asia. 

Back in 2007, Japan launched “Innovation 25,” a long-term initiative to increase productivity and promote economic growth through investments in science and technology, including robotics.  As authors such as James Wright have detailed, this led to both large-scale state investments in healthcare robots and a developing techno-utopian narrative in which robots would “save” Japan from its looming demographic challenges, such as the need to rely on migrant labor to meet looming eldercare needs. 

But the reality has been far different. Both Japan and South Korea (currently the world leader in industrial robots), have found themselves forced to rely on steadily rising levels of migrant workers to meet their demands for labor, particularly in eldercare.  Japan currently faces massive shortages of personnel to take care of its rapidly aging population, and is not only aggressively recruiting caregivers from Southeast Asia to meet its labor needs, but is steadily dropping barriers to allow them to provide in-home services.

The risk is that China will repeat the mistakes of its East Asian neighbors, in pursuing high-tech solutions that serve the interests of industrial planners and business interests, while overlooking China’s growing needs for human caregivers, particularly in impoverished and depopulated rural areas.