IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD, Robots Are Short-Circuiting Economic Growth.

Amidst all the fears that machines will lead to the unemployment of millions of Americans, the jobs robots are most eager to steal may in fact be in China. . . .

After all, automating factory work reduces the impact of labor costs, making it more attractive to keep production at home. That leads to fewer problems with global supply chains, faster response to consumer orders, fewer worries about intellectual property theft, and a more transparent legal and regulatory framework. In short, there are a lot of companies that will see upside in shifting production out of China—especially as the Chinese business environment becomes more hostile.
The return of manufacturing won’t mean a new wave of manufacturing jobs in the advanced countries, and given that a lot of the robots in the factories of the future will be immigrants, so to speak, from China and Japan, developed nations may not benefit as much as some hope.

Nonetheless, the biggest losers here are going to be the developing countries like India and Indonesia which had hoped low-skilled jobs would come to their countries as China transitioned to a high-skill manufacturing and services.

Rise of the machines.