China's first law on the promotion of the private sector ensures that all economic entities will enjoy equal legal status, market opportunities and the right to development, according to an expert.
The law on the promotion of the private sector was passed last Wednesday at a session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, and will take effect on May 20 this year.
Comprising 78 articles in nine chapters, the law covers such areas as fair competition, investment and financing promotion, scientific and technological innovation, regulatory guidance, service support, protection of rights and interests, and legal liabilities.
It aims to further optimize the development environment for the private economy, ensure fair market competition for all types of economic entities, and foster the sound development of both the private sector and its practitioners.
"Many of the policies and the practices proved to be effective in practice were written as legal provisions in the law, which stipulate that a fair competition review system should be implemented, barriers to market access should be eliminated in a timely manner, restricting private enterprises from or discriminating against them in public tendering, bidding or government procurement should be prohibited. In conclusion, the law ensures that all economic entities will enjoy equal legal status, market opportunities and the right to development," said Wu Sa, deputy director of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission.
"The law is specific in encouraging, supporting, and guiding private enterprises in aspects like fair competition, investment and financing promotion, technological innovation, regulated operation, service guarantees, and right and interests protection. These ensure that economic entities under all forms of ownership can equally access production factors in accordance with the law, participate in fair competition, be equally protected by the law, unleash their unique advantages while achieving complementary, and pursue common development," said Wu.
Private sector promotion law ensures equal legal status of all economic entities: expert
Honor's humanoid robot, Lightning, which swept the 2026 Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon on Sunday, is a natural extension of years of accumulation in consumer electronics technology, said its developers.
A leading smart device provider in China, Honor independently developed the model, which dominated the podium at the event as it was used by all three teams whose autonomous navigating robots ran the fastest times.
At the Honor factory in Pingshan District in Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province, where robotics engineers developed Lightning. They said the robot's body design incorporates a simulation system that, through artificial intelligence algorithms, can iterate nearly 30,000 design schemes of varying sizes over three months. Complete and mature systems are also in place for battery, communication, and reliability verification.
"We built a simulation lab from scratch. For the robots, we digitize the entire design and put it into a computer. We have our own material library, which can meet the force, thermal, and chemical property demands for each component, under different environments and speeds. We've accumulated about 1000 kinds of materials. For example, if there's a risk with the robot's neck, we just need to change the material code from 001 to 002. Now, through our simulations, we only need one day to perform parallel calculations on 10 different designs, before creating a mold and verifying it in the lab," said Li Zheng, a senior engineer at Honor.
An autonomous robot capable of completing a half-marathon involves a complete industry chain, with core components including high-precision sensors, LiDAR, motors, operating systems, and control algorithms. The development of robotic marathoners have driven an increasing number of component enterprises to get involved.
Manifold, a tech firm established by newly-graduated PhDs, has developed a 3D spatial memory module, which can model an environment in real time and transform it into images that robots can understand. They said several robots running the half-marathon this year adopted their solution.
"Our device can operate within a one-kilometer tunnel with an error margin of only tens of centimeters. For robots, especially in the absence of GPS, this allows them to accurately determine their location. The underlying technology is a multi-sensor fusion technology that we developed in-house," said Qin Youming, CEO and founder of Manifold.
The Beijing Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center set up a training camp for the marathon event. Many university students came a month ahead of the event to develop and debug their technologies and algorithms based on open-source robot bodies, databases, and training platforms.
"These high-quality databases and highly open-source control algorithms are actually very helpful to us. We no longer need to build the house from the ground up, but can skip the most basic part," said Sun Jingyu, a student from Shandong University.
"Through this racing event, I believe we can make our robots more reliable and stable, while also supporting high-dynamic, high-load movements. This is crucial for robots' future application in both industrial, commercial and domestic scenarios," said Guo Yijie, head of the innovative humanoid department and the Marathon project of Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center.
Engineers share development story behind Beijing humanoid half-marathon champion model
