The development level of industrial robots has always been a key indicator for measuring the comprehensive competitiveness of a country's manufacturing industry. By 2025, China's industrial robots will achieve a historic net export. The breakthrough in this field has significance far beyond the industry itself. It indicates that China's manufacturing industry is undergoing a profound transformation from surface to interior, from quantity to quality - China is gradually upgrading from a traditional participant in the "world factory" in the global industrial chain to a co builder of the global intelligent manufacturing ecosystem. Looking back at the past, 'World Factory' was once the label of China's manufacturing industry. China has deeply integrated into the global division of labor system, providing the world with a massive amount of high-quality and affordable goods with strong production organization capabilities and scale advantages. However, this model also comes with the hidden worry of being "too big but not strong" at specific stages of development: many key production equipment, core technologies, and even high-end materials rely on external imports for a long time. Behind this, it reflects the reality that China's manufacturing industry is still mostly in intermediate manufacturing links such as processing and assembly in the global value chain. Nowadays, changes are happening. The transition of industrial robots from imports to net exports is not an isolated event. It is a microcosm and inevitable result of the improvement of China's manufacturing system capability. Its fundamental driving force stems from the three major leaps that China's manufacturing industry as a whole is undergoing. Firstly, there is a transition in driving force, shifting from scale dividends to innovation dividends. The competitiveness foundation of China's manufacturing industry is undergoing fundamental restructuring. In the past, China mainly relied on comparative advantages in factors such as labor and land costs. Today, R&D investment, engineer dividends, digital ecology, and continuous technological innovation constitute new core competencies. This wave of innovation has swept through many industries, from the power batteries and intelligent driving of new energy vehicles to the autonomous and controllable high-end equipment. Chinese manufacturing continues to extend towards both ends of the "smile curve", accelerating the transformation from technology application-oriented to a source of technological innovation. Secondly, there is a transition in role positioning, upgrading from a product supplier to a system enabler. The output content of China's manufacturing industry is undergoing a qualitative change. China is no longer just a provider of terminal products, but is increasingly becoming a supplier of advanced productivity tools and intelligent manufacturing solutions. The export of industrial robots symbolizes China's beginning to export manufacturing capabilities to the outside world, not just products. This shift in positioning means that China's manufacturing industry is more deeply embedded and shaping the global industrial chain. The relationship between China and emerging manufacturing centers has evolved from a single trade complementarity to a "capacity co construction" that provides key equipment, technical standards, and systematic support in the restructuring of the industrial chain. Finally, there is a transition in the ecosystem, evolving from a collection of single factories to a cluster network ecosystem. The strength of China's manufacturing industry lies not only in a group of leading enterprises, but also in the world's most complete and responsive industrial supporting system. From the Yangtze River Delta to the Pearl River Delta, China has formed numerous efficient and collaborative manufacturing industry clusters. This ecological advantage enables any technological innovation to quickly find upstream and downstream matching, achieving astonishing conversion efficiency from drawings to products. It provides rich application scenarios and iterative soil for high-end equipment, and also constitutes the deep resilience of China's manufacturing industry that is difficult to replicate. Of course, the path towards becoming a "global co builder of intelligent manufacturing" is not an easy one. China still needs to continue to tackle challenges in high-end precision components, cutting-edge original technology, global brand awareness, and service system construction. But the direction is already clear, and the path is becoming increasingly clear. The overseas journey of industrial robots is a vivid footnote to the overall upgrading of China's manufacturing industry. It heralds the beginning of a new stage: Made in China is contributing indispensable Chinese strength and wisdom to the intelligent and green transformation of the global manufacturing industry with its continuously growing innovation power, increasingly perfect industrial ecology, and win-win concept of open cooperation. (New Press) (The author is an associate researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)