Let's re-imagine Indian manufacturing from scratch

India should rescue this sector from incrementalism and turn it into a guarantor of global success

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

China's President Xi Jinping has stepped up calls for greater self-reliance in the country's manufacturing sector, reinforcing a strategy that has long unsettled its global trade partners. His latest remarks came less than a week after Beijing and Washington agreed to a 90-day pause in their bilateral trade conflict. The message is unmistakably forward-looking: economic resilience, in Beijing's calculus, will come not from the Chinese economy's openness, but from fortified sovereignty.

India must take heed—not to mimic China's model, but to recognize the scale and seriousness with which Beijing is re-setting its industrial ambitions. While much attention has focused on traditional sectors, the scope of China's strategic planning stretches far beyond. Programmes such as its Three-Body Computing Constellation, which seeks to process data in space rather than rely exclusively on ground-based infrastructure, and its New Infrastructure initiative, which aims to integrate its space, computing and artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystems into a common architecture, are designed to position China as a nation where manufacturing, data and national capability converge.

In this context, India's manufacturing strategy demands nothing less than an overhaul. There is now a clear recognition among global producers that excessive dependence on China is both economically and geopolitically risky. This strategic recalibration has opened a rare window for India.