China’s Spring Festival Gala, known as Chunwan, is more than a television program.
At 8 p.m. on Lunar New Year’s Eve, nearly 1.4 billion people turn their eyes to television and mobile screens at the same time. That moment functions as a national ritual and a shared narrative.
It is a cultural event, a political message and an entertainment program — and also a showcase of industrial strategy.
Each year, China uses this stage to declare where it is heading.
The 2026 Chunwan was especially symbolic. Humanoid robots and artificial intelligence stood at the center of the stage. Traditional performances — classical dance, opera, comedy sketches and cross-talk — remained, but the driving force of the production was AI, XR, 5G and swarm-control technologies.
This was not merely visual spectacle. It was a display of industrial capability.
The most talked-about segment was the humanoid martial arts performance presented by Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics.
Robots executed drunken boxing and swordplay, exchanged dialogue with human actors and shifted formations in synchronized groups. It went beyond entertainment. It resembled a technological declaration.
Behind the choreography lay reinforcement learning, precision actuator control and vision-language-based cognition. Key robotic technologies were integrated into a single performance.
The message was clear: China is moving directly toward the era of physical AI.
From Liquor to Technology: A Generational Shift in Sponsors
Another striking change was visible in advertising.
For years, baijiu brands had dominated Chunwan sponsorship. This year, their presence declined sharply. In their place stood AI companies.
Alibaba promoted its large language model “Qwen.” Tencent highlighted its “Yuanbao” AI platform. ByteDance emphasized the advancement of its AI-driven content and recommendation systems.
This was more than a marketing shift. It symbolized a change in the center of gravity of the Chinese economy — from traditional consumption to advanced technology.
If baijiu once symbolized wealth, AI and robotics now symbolize future power. Chunwan became a ceremonial marker of that transition.
China’s AI development does not stop at applications. It spans large language models, video-generation systems, industrial robots and autonomous driving platforms. Alibaba and Tencent expand AI services on the back of massive cloud infrastructure, while startups pursue aggressive experiments in hardware and control systems.
In physical AI, China fully leverages its manufacturing base. Mass production of precision motors, batteries, sensors, drones and industrial robot components accelerates hardware development. Government-led robot clusters and local subsidies strengthen the industrial foundation.
Chunwan is where this entire ecosystem is condensed and displayed.
Technological Rivalry and Asia’s Position
AI leadership has become a core arena of U.S.-China competition.
The United States dominates chip design, cloud platforms and open AI ecosystems. China counters with market scale, data volume and manufacturing strength.
Chunwan functions as technological diplomacy in cultural form — a stage for external signaling.
It is soft power through engineering. Where Does Korea Stand?
Korea cannot afford to remain a spectator. The country possesses three structural advantages.
First, manufacturing. Strength in semiconductors, automobiles, shipbuilding and batteries can translate directly into physical AI competitiveness. Robots are built in factories, and Korea’s factories are globally competitive.
Second, digital infrastructure. Ultra-fast networks and high digital utilization enable large-scale experimentation and data accumulation. Physical AI improves through repeated failure and correction, and Korea’s industrial and urban environments are ideal testbeds.
Third, execution speed. The “ppalli-ppalli” culture is often criticized, but it represents problem-solving speed and adaptability. When combined with strategy, speed accelerates innovation.
Physical AI remains incomplete. It advances through falling, breaking and malfunctioning. What China showed on Chunwan reflects years of accumulated trial and error.
Korea must build an environment that tolerates failure.
Public institutions, military facilities, disaster sites, hospitals and logistics centers should serve as testbeds. Data from these experiments must be treated as industrial assets.
At the same time, hardware and software firms must form deep alliances. Without integration of manufacturing and algorithms, global competitiveness is impossible. Korea’s cooperative models in semiconductors and batteries should be extended to robotics and AI.
Chunwan was China’s declaration. It declared technology as national identity. But leadership is not built on declarations alone. Technological competition is also a contest of talent, capital, standards and ethics. Only countries that develop technology within frameworks of trust, transparency and values earn long-term credibility.
Korea now stands at a crossroads. As Asia’s technological landscape is being reshaped, will Korea remain on the periphery — or move to the center?
The potential exists.
Manufacturing strength, digital infrastructure and execution capacity can support leadership in physical AI.
What is required is determination. The robots on Chunwan’s stage were not merely performers.
They were signals. Asia is moving. Now it is Korea’s turn to respond.
*The author is a columnist for AJP.
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