March of the robots and China’s elderly care crisis

Beijing is dramatically pushing robots to care for an aging population as part of its national development plans to promote advanced manufacturing. But it is unclear how effective such policies will be to ease mounting healthcare needs in rural China. 

Central authorities have promoted robotics and technology in a move to reform services for the elderly for nearly a decade. Such language featured in State Council opinions released in 2016 and 2021.  

And it cropped up again last year when the Communist Party’s Central Committee and State Council emphasized the need to develop “humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence and other technological products.”

Simultaneously, China’s state-run media has seen a boom in reporting on these developments for caring for the elderly. China Daily wrote that “with a rapidly aging population, technology is being used to make up for a shortfall in resources.” 

Economic growth

Global Times and official news agency Xinhua also published reports: 

China is witnessing a rapid integration of artificial intelligence and robotics into eldercare services, offering innovative solutions to the challenges of an aging population. 

But an examination of policy documents suggests that the interest of Chinese authorities in this field is being driven by their desire for economic growth and manufacturing prowess. They appear to supersede the needs of the elderly. 

Naturally, Beijing has a long-standing interest ramping up its manufacturing capacities, set out in the State Council’s national strategic plan, Made in China 2025.  

Released in 2015, this was a comprehensive industrial plan to upgrade the country’s industrial capacities in fields including green vehicles, batteries, and robotics. 

Beijing viewed this exclusively through the lens of national security and economic development. The plan noted: 

Building an internationally competitive manufacturing industry is the only way for China to enhance its comprehensive national strength, safeguard national security and build a world power.

It makes no mention of China’s demographic shifts, nor its aging population. 

The relative priorities of China’s central officials are clear in looking at China’s 2021 five-year plan, which maps out national goals through 2035. 

Consistent with Beijing’s interest in economic growth and industrial policy, the blueprint devotes extensive sections to innovation, manufacturing, and the digital economy. 

Aging population

Addressing China’s demographic challenges are squeezed into a small subsection buried under “improving population quality.” Care for the elderly gets even less attention, just a mention within that already minor appendix. 

Still, there are specific proposals for an aging population. Take, for example, the 2024 central opinion flagging the need to develop humanoid robots in caring for the elderly.  

That neatly followed a 2023 joint opinion by the ministries of industry and information technology. It instructed officials to support the development of humanoid robots as a next-generation disruptive industry, following computers and electric vehicles. 

All of this resembles the blueprint of an East Asian state laser-focused on economic growth and technology, in which care for the elderly is valued more in terms of its market potential or ability to serve as a testing ground for new products.  

This has deep parallels elsewhere in the region.

Back in 2007, Japan launched “Innovation 25,” a long-term initiative to promote economic growth through investments in science and technology, including robotics.  

As authors such as James Wright have detailed, this led to both large-scale state investments in healthcare robots and a developing techno-utopian narrative.

This would involve robots “saving” Japan from its looming demographic challenges, such as the need to rely on migrant labor to meet rising eldercare needs. 

But the reality has been far different. Both Japan and South Korea, the world leader in industrial robots, have been forced to rely on steadily rising levels of migrant workers to meet their demands for labor, particularly in caring for the elderly. 

Japan faces massive shortages of personnel to ease its rapidly aging population, and is not only aggressively recruiting caregivers from Southeast Asia, but is dropping barriers to allow them to provide in-home services. 

Rural areas

The risk is that China will repeat the mistakes of its East Asian neighbors, in pursuing advanced solutions that serve the interests of industrial planners and business interests.

At the same time, they risk overlooking China’s growing needs for elderly care, particularly in impoverished and depopulated rural areas. 

Carl Minzner is a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This edited article was published by the Council on Foreign Relations under a Creative Commons license. Read the original here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.