China decoding yes newsweekAn in-depth newsletter on China’s growing influence on the world. It goes beyond the headlines to examine Beijing’s thinking, how its policies extend beyond China’s borders, and what they mean for the United States and its allies. Readers can sign up to participate China decoding Receive every edition right here in your inbox.
The newsletter is written by journalists with extensive experience covering China. Senior international affairs and investigations reporter Didi Kirsten Tatlow has reported extensively on Chinese politics, influence and security issues. John Feng, China editor, is based in Taiwan and reports on China’s domestic politics, foreign policy and the strategic competition between Beijing and Washington.
Below, for newsweek Everyone, we are reprinting the latest issue of China decoding whole:
Print the future
It’s a familiar script: Communist Party economic planners discover an exciting new technology and acquire it “through multiple means,” as they put it. They fuel this process through subsidies and other forms of industrial support that far exceed those of other countries; the technology is integrated into national development plans and national military-civilian integration systems; and as manufacturing expands, they even deploy cyber espionage capabilities to ensure advantage and create global dependence.
This is what happens with 3D printing or additive manufacturing (more precisely, additive manufacturing). AM refers to the production process of creating physical objects from digital models by adding materials layer by layer. Literally, it will print the future.
The technology is fast and flexible, making it particularly valuable in time-sensitive or supply-constrained environments, including defence, disaster response and other crisis situations, according to a provocative and thorough new study. Planning for the future: reducing the risk of China’s additive manufacturing hegemonywritten by David Gardáš, Michal Thim and Filip Urban and published by Czech think tank Synopsis.
“China’s growing dominance in 3D printing is turning the manufacturing revolution into an economic and national security issue,” the authors warn.
China has a playbook for industrial areas it wants to dominate, and it does it well. The policies are clear, the staff are hard-working and fast, and the products are cheap and high-quality. But there is almost no chance. Control is king.
This raises the question: Is this fair? Is dependence in this area what the rest of the world wants?
Maybe fairness has nothing to do with it. Maybe this is sour grapes psychology.
Perhaps the question should be, what should other countries do about this? If they don’t like the situation, why don’t they do much?
It is important to know that, as the authors point out, citing International Monetary Fund data, China spent 4.4% of its GDP in 2023 supporting its industrial policies, including in the form of cash subsidies, tax incentives, land subsidies, and preferential credit. This number is very high – three times that of other economies.
So there’s a fairness issue here – at least if you’re interested in free and balanced trade. Additive manufacturing is then tightly integrated into mature civil-military integration systems, integrating military and non-military knowledge with manufacturing.
The author writes that today, additive manufacturing has been listed as a strategic industry in China, and after about three decades of a series of policies, plans and documents at the national and provincial levels, additive manufacturing has been incorporated into its industrial policy. China’s production is surging. Usage is also surging globally.
“In the context of this policy, China’s additive manufacturing industry now encompasses desktop 3D printers and industrial systems for high-performance metal and polymer parts,” the author writes, referring to leading companies such as Bambu Lab, Xi’an Guangming Laser Technology Co., and Hua Shuguang High-Tech, as well as the large defense conglomerate Norinco, which has its own additive manufacturing technology research and application center.
On August 24, 2026, customers watched the additive manufacturing process at the Bambu Lab flagship store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province:
The defense uses are obvious: The war in Ukraine demonstrated the value of additive manufacturing for rapid production, especially of drones and related parts. Bambu Lab printers are reportedly in use by the Ukrainian and British armies.
The authors say this is not just a matter of technology, but also the cause. A “start-to-end” situation, or start-to-end ecosystem, is being constructed to achieve long-term dominance. As this happens, risks in other parts of the world “are becoming increasingly severe related to the loss of intellectual property rights, technology transfer and the security of sensitive data,” they wrote.
They write that Chinese additive manufacturing companies benefit from a wider range of non-market measures that favor localization, scale and domestic substitution, and – again subsidized – receive disproportionately high levels of state support relative to their rivals in OECD economies.
“The result is a severe distortion of competition that allows foreign companies to expand rapidly overseas, while foreign companies’ access to the Chinese market is more restricted.” Overall, they write, new entrants to Western additive manufacturing markets are finding it increasingly difficult to gain a foothold, obtain venture capital, or compete.
“Taken together, these trends make China’s additive manufacturing ecosystem a strategic concern not only for industrial competitiveness, but also for supply chain resilience, technology and innovation security, intellectual property rights protection, and Western national security,” they wrote.
what to do? The authors make seven recommendations. The three cores are summarized here. They boil down to this: Protect your technology, cooperate with friendly countries, and do it better:
- Classify additive manufacturing systems as sensitive technologies; implement targeted export controls and procurement safeguards;
- Coordinate technical security measures with allies… to reduce the risk that control from one jurisdiction will transfer acquisition activity to another;
- Invest in a competitive open innovation ecosystem; support domestic and joint R&D, technical education, and workforce expertise in industrial software, materials, secure digital workflows… to reduce strategic dependencies and retain critical AM expertise.
Didi Kirsten Tatlow is a senior reporter in Newsweek’s international affairs/investigations desk. She lives in Berlin, Germany. You can contact us via email here.
data story
China is growing into a unique superpower. Its importance to the world, or rather the world’s dependence on it, is orchestrated through heavily subsidized manufacturing, a dependence that global economies find difficult to escape.
The Chinese government in January valued China’s additive manufacturing industry at 70 billion yuan, or about $10.5 billion. Its top 3D printing companies (like those mentioned by Kirsten above) shipped nearly 40% of all additive manufacturing equipment sold last year, accounting for about 90% of the consumer segment.
“Additive” is a technical category in engineering, which is different from “subtractive” such as milling or “forming” such as injection molding. 3D printing began in the 1980s as a method for rapid prototyping with polymers, but today’s manufacturing industry has shifted to using higher-grade materials for use in aerospace, defense and medical industries, among others.
China’s additive manufacturing industry leads in terms of output but still lags far behind the United States in terms of value. It’s a familiar story we’ve seen in industries like artificial intelligence, but that’s not to say Beijing’s economic planners don’t plan to one day dominate.
China aims to win every aspect of the next industrial revolution, with no industry too small to dominate (not that 3D printing is small).
A report released in June by consulting firm Grand View Research predicts that the global additive manufacturing market will reach US$30.6 billion in 2025. North America has the largest revenue share at 32.8%, but the Asia-Pacific market is growing fastest. By 2033, the total value of the industry is expected to grow more than fivefold to $168.9 billion.
Industry researchers at CONTEXT analyzed 3D printing equipment in four price categories:
- Entry level: up to $2,500;
- Professional: up to $20,000;
- Mid-range: up to $100,000;
- Industrial over $100,000.
The real money is at the last tier—for medical devices like implants and aerospace components like engine parts—which explains America’s continued dominance of the value chain.
American and Israeli company Stratasys has the largest market revenue share, with 11.5%, while Germany’s EOS ranks second with 7.8%. Three other U.S. companies jointly rounded out the top five.
As a result, most of the world’s desktop computers are shipped in China, machines that print mostly from plastic, but the Western pioneers in the industry make most of the money—more than 70 percent of all hardware revenue.
Rest assured – China will soon be competing in the highest value segments too, with its proven manufacturing strategy.
John Feng yes newsweekChina editor based in Taichung, Taiwan. You can contact John via email here.