And robots are not only taking over work in coastal Guangdong, they've camped in factories across China, and are encouraged to multiply. In Jiangsu province's Kunshan, more than 610 million US dollars have gone into industrial robot development in the last year.  The local government expects the machines to replace 2.5 million workers when the project goes through.

Foxconn has a factory there which has already introduced robots into its work force. It had laid off 60,000 workers as of May. China became the world's largest market for industrial robots in 2013, largely importing from overseas. But its robot density--- measured by the number of robots per 10,000 workers, still lags far behind that of South Korea and Japan. To encourage domestic robot manufacturing, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology laid out a guideline earlier this year. By doling out funds and supportive policies, it aims to triple the annual production of industrial robots to 100,000 by 2020.