In our national discourse, it’s easy to retreat into comfortable tropes: “China bad,” “free markets good,” and “the next G is just around the corner.” But none of that is a plan. We need more than another slogan; America needs a real, tangible, industrial strategy. And it starts with a hard-nosed look at how China’s approach to 5G and smart manufacturing is reshaping the global balance of power.

Let’s be clear: China’s rise is no longer just a story of cheap labor. That era is over. Today, a growing fraction of China’s manufacturing strength lies in its ability to deploy high-end, labor-light, automation-heavy processes at scale. It’s a productivity story now, driven by robotics, industrial AI, and, most crucially, advanced 5G infrastructure deployed as an industrial platform — not just as a consumer gimmick.

While the United States focused on consumer streaming, designed to supercharge smart factories and logistics hubs. In the U.S., we’ve built fewer than 3,000 — and many of those are still on LTE. The results speak for themselves. And these aren’t just imported systems — they’re increasingly homegrown, with Chinese firms supplying 50% of their domestic demand.

That is what a strategic, forward-looking industrial policy looks like.

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on May 14, 2020 shows recent portraits of
China’s President Xi Jinping (L) and US President Donald Trump.. (Photo by DAN KITWOODNICHOLAS KAMM/POOL/AFP/AFP via Getty Images)

Compare this with our own policy environment, where even the best private sector players are hamstrung by outdated regulations, capricious permitting processes, and the dogma that government shouldn’t pick winners —........

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