it is the only thing giving them an advantage over the USA

That’s really not true at all anymore. China is an absolute manufacturing powerhouse. Almost all of the industry that used to be the USA’s strength in the ‘50s is China’s strength now.

They haven’t been the cheapest labor anymore for a while now and they don’t need to be.

Don’t get me wrong, the USA has other, newer strengths now — tech and design, among others. But they do appear to be throwing them away and ceding to others — especially China — as hard and fast as they can.

On the other hand, humanoid shape for robots seems like an extreme waste of technical complexity and cost, so in my opinion this particular article is mostly showing up how China is also beating the USA at being faddish and dumb following tech fashion.