People who have been to Japan may have a feeling that:
This place has a steampunk feel to it: the conveyor belts of the revolving sushi restaurant can be designed to move extremely fast, and the change machines can count coins quickly and accurately, giving off an intense sense of mechanization that feels very precise.
However, when it comes to smart technology, the gap is not just a little.
But there is one exception: Japan's acceptance of robots has been remarkably rapid.
Japan's largest family restaurant chain has been installing robots in its approximately 2,100 stores across the country since 2022, with around 3,000 food serving robots deployed. With the robots, the chain has seen an increase in table turnover rates during peak hours and a reduction in the distance staff need to walk each day, making both owners and employees happy.
And these robots that help them deliver meals and collect dishes come from China.
The distributors who sell these robots are also worth noting.
Japan's SoftBank, once an avid robotics enthusiast, has developed its own Pepper robot, which was once the face of Japan's robotics industry, and also acquired Boston Dynamics, the legendary US company that inspired a generation of robotics entrepreneurs, including Wang Xing.
It no longer manufactures itself, and has turned to become a Japanese distributor for Chinese robots.
SoftBank Robotics has become the sales agent in Japan for Chinese robot companies including Pudu and Jiajia, with other robot products coming from Japan and Norway, among others.
Even the latest humanoid robots are being used.
In May 2026, Japan Airlines introduced humanoid robots at Haneda Airport to transport luggage under the belly of large aircraft and load it onto conveyor belts. The humanoid robot industry is currently most concerned about landing applications, with the whole world searching for solutions, but Japan has placed it in an airport, a setting where mistakes cannot be made, and one of the busiest airports globally at that.
Two robots have started work: one, 1.3 meters tall, is from Cosinuss, while the other, slightly taller, is from UBTech. The two, one tall and one short, have begun their duties at Haneda Airport, and in terms of their status, they are still two foreign employees.
This is a microcosm, with Chinese manufacturing having permeated the daily lives of the Japanese.
Life-Saving Supplies Must be Bought from China
Japan is known for its frequent earthquakes, and as a result, many Japanese households make preparing for earthquakes a part of their daily routine, with water, dried food, and flashlights being common household items.
In recent years, a new item has been added to the list of essentials. In Japan's disaster prevention community, there's a concept known as "one household, one unit," which refers to each household having a high-capacity outdoor power source to charge mobile phones and emergency lights during power outages. This concept may seem unfamiliar to us, but it's taken seriously in Japan. Outdoor power sources are at the top of the recommended list for disaster supplies, and on e-commerce websites like Amazon, brands such as Anker, Jackery, and Zhenghao consistently rank among the top sellers - either they are Chinese brands or they are registered in the US but still manufactured in China.
At the end of July, a magnitude-7 earthquake struck Kumamoto, a place famous for its mascot Kumamon. Fortunately, there were not many casualties, but many roads and bridges were destroyed, and approximately 40,000 households lost power. With continuous aftershocks, evacuation centers were overcrowded, and mobile phones were the only means of contacting the outside world, but the battery was draining rapidly, and people were lining up to charge their devices.
It's only at times like these that you seriously consider a question: how much is a reliable high-capacity charging device really worth.
Less than an hour after the earthquake, companies began issuing statements of support. Over the next few weeks, various enterprises and groups sent thousands of portable power sources, hundreds of solar panels, generators, and car refrigerators to the disaster area. Upon closer inspection, the brands were largely the same few companies. In Yatsushiro City, for example, after the earthquake caused continuous water outages, someone used a portable power source to connect to a well water pump, and the water supply was restored.
This isn't the first time. In early 2024, when the Noto Peninsula earthquake struck, Chinese manufacturers sent several hundred power units to the disaster zone. A local small business owner who borrowed one put it better than any advertisement: "Water and food you could carry home from the shelters. Electricity, you couldn't before. Now you can."
Later, several power supply manufacturers, including Anker and Zhenghao, signed an agreement with Japan's largest communications groups: in the event of a disaster, they would provide emergency power supplies.
Map: Anker Innovations' Japanese subsidiary reveals its disaster relief cooperation and material support network across Japan
Chinese brands have entered Japan's disaster emergency power supply system.
Being relied upon at the most critical moments is the most genuine recognition for a product.
And they are embedded in Japanese society to a degree deeper than many people imagine.
Nubia's Hardware Empire Loses Face
When it comes to Japanese manufacturing, the first word that probably comes to mind for many older Chinese people is "high quality".
This is true, if you still have a Sony TV or a Panasonic washing machine bought twenty years ago, it may still be working. Back then, names like Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, and Hitachi were the epitome of consumer electronics. Portable music players were invented by Sony, game consoles were dominated by Nintendo and Sony, cameras were the realm of Canon and Nikon, and Toyota and Honda swept the global automobile market.
However, the situation is changing one after another.
The throne for TVs has been lost, and the throne for white goods has also been lost, with Midea acquiring Toshiba's home appliance business and Haier acquiring Sanyo's white goods. The same applies to automobiles, as in 2023, China surpassed Japan to become the world's largest automobile exporter.
In terms of robotics, Japan was once the most advanced, they had Gundam (not really), they have a world-renowned representative work: ASIMO.
Honda formally unveiled the robot in 2000, at which time it could walk, climb stairs, jog, carry a tray to serve drinks, and even stand on a podium to conduct an entire symphony orchestra. The whole world had seen ASIMO bow, and at that time, it was probably the most well-known robot on earth, basking in its glory.
But ASIMO never left the exhibition hall, and in twenty years, it never worked a single day, never swept a floor, never moved a crate, and never took a post in any factory or hospital.
Now that it has retired, it debuted at its peak and retired as a legend, with zero attendance in between, a standard idol model.
Ironically, in the years since ASIMO stepped down, Japan's demand for robots has reached an all-time high. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has done the math: by 2040, Japan will need 2.72 million nursing care workers, with a shortfall of 570,000, equivalent to one position out of every five being unfilled. Construction sites and airport ground crews are all struggling to find staff.
Their enthusiasm for robots also stems from this, but they are unable to produce general-purpose robots that can assist with everything like humans, and they are watching as the gap between them widens.
RoboCup, the robot football World Cup, was initiated by Japanese scholars in 1997, with a romantic intention: to promote the advancement of the entire field, with the goal of creating a robot team that can win the human World Cup championship by 2050. At that time, Japan was at the forefront of the robotics field, making it reasonable for the Japanese to initiate such a competition.
Nearly thirty years later, the roles have reversed in this arena. At the 2026 humanoid competition held in Incheon, South Korea, 38 out of 49 participating teams used robots from the same Chinese company, accounting for 78%.
Nikkei reported "crustal movement" in four characters.
Japan, the host country, was only able to assemble one team. Hiroshi Okada, chairman of the Japanese committee, explained the situation pragmatically: the cheapest commercially available humanoid robot with a decent price-performance ratio costs around 2 million yen, so assembling a team of five robots would cost over 10 million yen. Adding transportation and travel expenses, the total cost of participating in one competition would be over 20 million yen, equivalent to nearly 1 million yuan, an amount that Japanese university research labs can barely afford.
A competition it initiated has become a stage for other companies' robots.
Recently, the World Robot Games held in Beijing featured lively scenes that many people have seen. While the human Olympics strive to be faster, higher, and stronger, this robot competition has already surpassed humans in many areas, with its second edition seeing robots that can run so fast they leave afterimages. This time, teams from 16 countries participated, with over 2,000 robots, most of which were made in China.
Japan has also arrived, with a team and a robot.
This robot, called "Xiao Tong", has a small following online in Japan, where it is affectionately known as "Tong-chan". Its body was made by Yu Shu Technology, while a Japanese team was responsible for the control software, making it a naturalized player in a strict sense.
The results are no longer a concern: 10th place in the 400-meter preliminary round, barely advancing, and then falling in the semifinals; the 1500-meter race was completed, ranking 7th out of 35, with an emphasis on participation.
Picture: Japan's sole participating robot
Only one robot showed up, but the Japanese media almost all came out in force, with TBS, TV Asahi, Tokyo TV, NHK, and Fuji TV cameras trained on the Chinese robots on the competition floor. Takushoku University's Tomosuke Fusa professor appeared on a TV Asahi program, saying as he watched, "In a word, China is far ahead." TBS reported a striking figure: in the first half of 2026, global shipments of humanoid robots totaled approximately 19,000 units, with Chinese manufacturers accounting for 97%.
Photo: Asahi TV report
The camera isn't just focused on the arena. NHK aired a program in July 2026 titled "日本の工場に中国製ロボットが" (Chinese-made robots appear in Japanese factories), which was filmed in Aichi Prefecture, the location of Toyota's headquarters and the heart of Japan's manufacturing industry, creating a stark contrast.
Figure: Take a look at the title and see for yourself
What does China rely on?
Professor Tanaka Michiaki of Rikkyo University in Japan has a judgment that I think is the most accurate at present: China's humanoid robots did not emerge out of thin air as a new industry, but rather are the result of the convergence of three supply chains. The first is the accumulation of motor and flight control technology from over a decade of development in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry. The second is the mass production capabilities and battery supply chain that have been developed by the electric vehicle industry. The third is the sensor and system integration technology that has been refined over twenty years in the smartphone industry. Almost every core component required for humanoid robots can be found in these three supply chains.
Such a supply chain cannot be replicated out of thin air, neither by Japan nor by any other country.
The Whole of Japan Now Understands
Japan has fallen behind in this regard, and they are almost watching themselves fall behind with their eyes wide open.
This is a mindset that Chinese people are not very familiar with. Over the past few decades, in most fields, we have been the ones playing catch-up, used to keeping an eye on the people in front of us and gradually narrowing the gap. For someone who was once almost always in the lead, watching others catch up and surpass them, and being unable to muster the strength to respond, is a feeling that we rarely have the opportunity to experience.
The Japanese people are fortunate to have experienced these two mindsets in one lifetime.
Forty years ago, it was Americans sitting in front of their TVs listening to experts say "we have to rely on that country's technology"; the country that was watched as it surpassed the US in many aspects back then was Japan.
And over the past two years, the reaction from Japan's industrial sector has been as follows.
Yaskawa Electric, one of the world's four major industrial robot giants and a flagship of Japan's industrial robotics, saw its CEO, Koji Kawada, say in an interview with Nikkei: "It is a fact that China's homegrown robot companies are rising, and more and more customers are starting to adopt Chinese-made products."
Nikkei used the word "タジタジ" to describe Fanuc's situation, meaning being at a loss and on the back foot. This is particularly noteworthy given that the company in question is a leader in industrial robots, a field in which Japan takes great pride.
4 trillion yen, equivalent to approximately 20 billion yuan, is the amount Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to invest through 2040, with the goal of capturing 30% of the global humanoid robot market. Recall the figure recently reported by TBS: in the first half of 2026, China accounted for 97%. By setting a target 14 years in the future, the implication is that Japan's current market share is almost zero.
On Japanese social media, someone said: "More than 20 years ago, ASIMO could already walk and greet people, while China was still making toys. Now the situation is reversed." The tone is somewhat resentful, but mostly resigned.
You see, they unveiled ASIMO back in 2000, but it wasn't until 2026 that they brought out this 400 billion, as the saying goes, "rising early, but arriving late at the gathering".
Televisions, washing machines, air conditioners, cars, industrial robots, and humanoid robots - at every link in this chain, Japan once held a stable position. Each time China took it away, there were people in Japan who said "the next one is impossible". Now it's the turn of humanoid robots, and nobody is saying that anymore.
The hardware business has never been about sentiment. Whoever has a stronger supply chain, lower costs, and larger quantities will take the top spot - Japan has held it for decades, but now it's time for a change.