This study examines industrial upgrading in manufacturing firms in Dongguan, China in the context of the Dongguan government’s recent policy initiative to boost its manufacturing sector by encouraging industrial upgrading. To implement its so-called ‘Replacing Humans with Robots’ policy, which we see as an expression of the central government’s ‘Made in China 2025’ policy, the Dongguan government offers incentives to manufacturers’ region to automate their production lines with a range of assets including computer numerical control (CNC) machines and industrial robots. Applying Humphrey and Schmitz’s (Regional Studies 36[9]:1017–1027, 2002) taxonomy of industrial upgrading, our mixed-methods ethnographic and documentary research identified three types of upgrading at the factories we studied: process, product and functional upgrading. While our data draw on the perspectives of factory owners and managers, they bear important implications for workers. Future studies are needed to elaborate those implications.
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