Humanoid robots dressed in colorful clothing participate in God-wandering in Jieyang, Guangdong province of China.

Photograph: Getty Images

Mar 24th 2026|SHANGHAI|4 min read

CHINESE TECHNOCRATS spell out their vision of the future in impenetrable officialese. The 15th five-year plan for China’s economic development, adopted in March, talks of “industrial upgrading”, “new quality productive forces” and the like. Yet in plain language, it translates into Elon Musk’s fever dream: skies dotted with flying taxis; fusion power fuelling factories manned by humanoid robots; unstoppable quantum computers; 6G mobile devices plugged directly into people’s brains.

Signage for Mizuho Bank Ltd., a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (MHFG), at one of the bank's branches in Tokyo, Japan.

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