Xi Focus-Closeup: Cutting-edge tech exemplifies China's innovation drive

SHENYANG -- Mobile robots roving the ground and steering clear of obstacles in their way, mechanical arms moving back and forth under the control of a computer program, and flexible robots twisting their bodies...

These were the scenes at a factory workshop of Siasun Robot and Automation Co., Ltd., as President Xi Jinping closely observed the cutting-edge innovations there during his inspection tour of northeast China's Liaoning Province last week.

Technicians were carrying out tests of industrial robots, collaborative robots and specialized robots at the workshop.

Founded in 2000, Siasun has been dedicated to independent innovation since its inception. It once spent more than a decade developing a piece of equipment used to process precision components. Thanks to the success in innovation, the country has realized import substitution for the equipment.

Today, with core technologies, core components and parts, and core products, it has developed more than 100 robotic products with independent intellectual property rights, providing industrial service to more than 3,000 transnational firms.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, asked the technicians and workers about the enterprise's research on core technologies and praised the enterprise's achievements in independent innovation and industrial development.

The company represents the Chinese speed and the Chinese proficiency, he said.

Xi was delighted to learn that Siasun's robotic products have been widely applied in car manufacturing.

"What we had to tackle in the past was whether we were able to manufacture cars. Later we overcame the challenge of whether we were able to manufacture quality cars. Now we are overcoming another challenge of whether we are able to produce equipment for the manufacturing of quality cars."

According to Zhang Jin, president of Siasun, dual lift assembly automatic guided vehicles developed by the company command a market share of more than 80 percent in domestic automobile marriage lines, and the product is also supplied to more than 20 overseas carmakers.

"We should promote self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology, seizing every minute to make breakthroughs in solving 'bottleneck' problems, and striving to have the core technologies in key areas and equipment manufacturing industry in our own hands," Xi stressed.