Robots, AI, and innovative drugs — the so-called new ‘New Three’ — have become China's newest foreign trade calling card, with state media highlighting their explosive overseas performance.
In the first half of 2026, China's industrial robot exports jumped 18.6% year-on-year, reaching 141 countries and regions. Surgical robot exports surged 3.3 times. The numbers signal more than industrial upgrading: they mark a solid entry into the global high-end medical market, confirming that Chinese manufacturing has evolved from the labor-intensive old 'New Three' to the technology-intensive new 'New Three’.
AI technology is accelerating integration with hardware, opening up new application scenarios in overseas markets.
As for AI: data from OpenRouter, a global AI model aggregation platform, shows that in the third week of July, China's large models recorded 36.11 trillion tokens in weekly usage, ranking first globally for twelve consecutive weeks.
That report card means China's large models are not only popular domestically but have also secured a leading position in the global AI application market, outpacing competitors for three straight months.
Innovative drugs also broke through. In the first half, China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) approved 11 innovative drugs with new targets and mechanisms, all independently developed by Chinese pharmaceutical companies.
AI-assisted R&D is shortening the cycle for new drug discovery, speeding up the internationalization of homegrown innovative drugs.
Out-licensing transaction value reached about $110 billion (HK$858 billion), already 80% of last year's total. Chinese companies also claimed eight of the top ten global pharmaceutical transactions. That shows Chinese pharmaceutical companies are no longer 'following' — they've taken the lead in the global innovative drug transaction market.
Global Impact and Open-Source Leadership
Chinese-made cleaning robots are replacing high-altitude 'spider-men' in Australia, cutting the risks of dangerous work. In Brazil, Chinese large models assist local power grids with maintenance and inspection in complex environments.
An innovative drug capsule from Shanghai has also been included in global authoritative treatment guidelines. These concrete cases show that China's new ‘New Three' are not just a slogan — they are genuinely changing daily lives in other countries.
NBC recently cited a Pew Research Center poll released July 15, pointing out that the view of China as a more reliable partner is gaining recognition in many regions. Even the Financial Times reported that international platforms like Pinterest and Airbnb have long used Chinese open-source models to optimize products and iterate services.
France's Libération added that thanks to a complete production system and economies of scale, Chinese innovative drugs often launch at prices far below European and American counterparts. After some cancer treatments enter the French medical insurance system, each patient can save tens of thousands of euros annually.
Some Western countries, in contrast, have been building walls and barriers to contain China's tech rise. But China is doubling down on an open-source ecosystem, giving small and medium-sized enterprises and developing countries worldwide access to top-tier computing power at rock-bottom costs.
Global downloads of Chinese open-source large models have surpassed 10 billion. And on July 28, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization was officially established in Shanghai, hailed as a milestone in AI
Western Dependence and Expert Endorsements
A Morgan Stanley report put it bluntly: Without China, the supply-chain cost for Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 humanoid robot would multiply several times over. That's a stinging rebuke to the West — even Elon Musk's own robot project can't escape China's supply chain.
Industrial robots are now widely used in automated sorting and logistics, boosting supply chain efficiency
Wang Xiaosong, a professor at Renmin University's School of Economics, argues that China's manufacturing upgrade rests on a complete, constantly evolving industrial system, sustained R&D spending, and a super-sized market.
It's the fruit of hard work and open collaboration. Over the past five years, China's R&D spending has grown 10% annually, ranking second globally.
Retired Pakistani Air Force Colonel Sultan Hali, a China expert, recently argued that Chinese-style modernization shows tech innovation isn't just a national engine — it can also fuel global development through open cooperation.
That's, to some extent, a direct rebuttal to the 'China threat theory': China brings opportunity, not impact; empowerment, not threats.
Mao Paishou
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
When the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, energy costs in Germany, a country heavily reliant on Russian natural gas, spun instantly out of control. Electricity prices at one point surged sevenfold, forcing ordinary people to dream up all manner of clever tricks to save on their power bills. One of those tricks has become a distinctive sight on German streets: the "balcony solar" system.
To cut power bills, Germans turned balconies into power plants.
"Balkonkraftwerk": Miracles On Balconies
This simple generating setup costs just a few hundred euros, yet more than 1.33 million units have been installed across Germany in three years. The German government has even amended the law, granting tenants with no rooftop of their own priority installation rights.
What Germans call the "Balkonkraftwerk", or "balcony power plant", is actually just one or two solar panels hung outside the railing, an inverter the size of a shoebox, and a plug that goes into a household socket. The current then flows back into the home: the inverter sets its output voltage slightly higher than the 230V household supply, so solar power feeds in reverse into the wiring. A small storage battery can be added to keep the power coming at night.
The "Balkonkraftwerk": railing-hung panels, a shoebox-sized inverter, one plug.
The principle is not complicated. It works rather like a water supply system. Pipes maintain a steady pressure; turn on the tap and the pressure difference pushes the water out. The grid works the same way. China's standard household voltage is 220V and Germany's is 230V. The inverter in a balcony photovoltaic module simply nudges its output voltage slightly above the socket voltage, pushing solar power back in.
Once the current enters the socket, it is consumed on the spot, "drunk up" by the appliances at home. Less electricity is drawn from the grid, and the meter turns more slowly. If no appliances are running, then in areas where bidirectional metering is permitted, the surplus power flows out of the home along the mains line and back into the grid.
A Few Hundred Euros, Real Money Back
A "balcony power plant" sells for roughly 200 to 500 euros, depending on output. The best-selling 800W model goes for about 350 euros. A solar-plus-storage package with a battery costs between 800 and 1,500 euros.
A granny who lives in Stuttgart finds a 300W system enough to cover her basic needs: lighting, the router and electric fans. She now checks the next day's sunshine forecast every evening. If the sun will be out, she schedules a bike charge or runs the dishwasher. "Save whatever you can," she says.
Granny's 300W system covers her lights, router and fans.
Her nightly ritual: the sunshine forecast. "Save whatever you can."
Weyland, a young man in the northern city of Kiel, hung two panels with a combined output of 600W on the balcony of his rented apartment. In good weather they cover half of his daily electricity use. The whole system cost under 500 euros, yet saves him more than 90 euros a year, a payback period of about five years. These days he spends his time glued to the app, watching the generation figures roll in.
Kiel renter Weyland's two balcony panels total 600W.
In southern Germany, where the sunshine is better, a standard 800W system generates about 750 to 850 kWh a year. At last year's average price of 0.39 euros per kWh, that puts up to 295 to 334 euros a year back in the user's pocket.
For an ordinary household consuming 3,000 kWh a year, saving is about 25 to 28 percent. A single-person household using around 1,500 kWh could ideally save 50 to 57 percent.
No Roof? No Problem
Europe used to put solar panels on rooftops. But more than half of Germany's population lives in rented housing, the highest share in the EU. That means no roof, no land, nowhere to put panels, and no eligibility for the complicated installation and grid-connection approval process.
No roof, no problem: balcony solar is the tenant's lifesaver.
That was when Chinese manufacturers stepped up, Anker Innovations, EcoFlow and Zendure among them. They launched lightweight, low-cost balcony solar kits that skip the tedious paperwork and are far easier to use.
Panels have been slimmed down from the traditional 20kg to just 3 to 5kg. Hook-style railing clamps fix them in place with a few screws. Some models can simply be lashed on with metal cable ties, and they can be taken down easily when moving.
Voltage has dropped from the 600V to 1,000V high-voltage direct current of rooftop solar to a safe 30V to 60V. The plug goes straight into an ordinary socket, and monitoring is done entirely through an app. Installation and use are virtually "zero-threshold". German young people love it. Chinese manufacturers have turned solar "engineering" into a consumer electronics product for everyone.
Berlin Gives the Green Light
The German government has also given the green light. A legislative amendment in May 2024 allows self-installation without prior approval; simple registration afterwards is enough. Balcony solar is now a "privileged installation", on par with disabled-access facilities and EV charging points. Landlords and owners' committees may not block installations on grounds such as "spoiling the view". A landlord who wants to refuse must prove a safety hazard; if the tenant can fix the hazard, the installation goes ahead anyway. The government also waived the 19 percent VAT, and cities including Berlin and Stuttgart have rolled out dedicated subsidies of up to 500 euros. All income from generation is exempt from personal income tax.
With the government "loosening the reins", balcony solar has grown rapidly. Around 260,000 units were added in 2023. The figure soared to 435,000 in 2024, and another 430,000 or so were registered in 2025. That is 1.1 million units installed at lightning speed in three years. By May this year, cumulative installations had reached 1.33 million, the equivalent of more than a thousand German households signing up every day.
Policy green light: install first, register afterwards.
Other European countries have followed suit. The Netherlands had reached 600,000 cumulative installations by the end of 2025, the highest penetration after Germany, with nearly 5 percent of households equipped. Austria has installed 250,000 units, Italy 200,000 and Belgium 150,000.
Made in China, Invisible at Home
Of the solar panels imported into Europe, 98 percent come from China, and 70 percent of micro-inverters are Chinese-supplied. In balcony energy storage, Chinese companies had already secured the first seven places of the top ten best-seller spots in Europe as early as the third quarter of 2024. Industry forecasts see global installed balcony solar capacity exceeding 50 gigawatts by 2030, with China likely to claim more than 40 percent of it.
Yet in China itself, these products are practically invisible in cities. For one thing, electricity in China is genuinely cheap. For another, China follows a "centralized plus distributed" path.
The northwest builds gigawatt-scale centralized solar bases across deserts and the Gobi on a massive scale, using ultra-high-voltage transmission to solve the geographic mismatch. The east develops distributed solar on factory and detached-house rooftops. Rural rooftops easily run to tens or even hundreds of square meters, accommodating 20kW to 50kW systems. That is dozens of times the generating capacity of balcony solar.
With no domestic demand to speak of, Chinese companies have nonetheless struck overseas demand with pinpoint precision and taken command of the global balcony solar market. The same story has played out with saddle-style window air conditioners, fully automatic lawnmowers, electric-assist bicycles and AI game-tracking cameras. To Western politicians, China's technological rise is a threat. But to ordinary people abroad, Chinese products have made life better, time and again.
