Dake Kang

Associated Press

Today in Manufacturing Podcast

Today in Manufacturing Podcast

Today in Manufacturing has a new podcast brought to you by the editors of Industrial Media. In each episode, we discuss the five biggest stories in manufacturing, and the implications they have on the industry moving forward.

In this June 5, 2019, photo, a neighborhood resident stops for a smoke near the entrance to an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. The Associated Press has found that OFILM, a supplier of major multinational companies, employs Uighurs, an ethnic Turkic minority, under highly restrictive conditions, including not letting them leave the factory compound without a chaperone, worship, or wear headscarves.

Phones, Tablets Tainted by Coerced Labor

The factory lies within a walled compound fortified with security cameras and guards.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, center, poses with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, right, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pose for photos before holding talks at the Xijiao Conference Center in Shanghai Wednesday, July 31, 2019.

No Word on Progress in China Talks

Chinese leaders are resisting U.S. pressure to roll back plans for government-led development of industry leaders in robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies.

Huawei Wants U.S. to Lift Restrictions

The company claims the restrictions are hurting U.S. suppliers.

Huawei's Head of Intellectual Property Jason Ding speaks at a press conference at the company's headquarters in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province, Thursday, June 27, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has warned a U.S. proposal to block the company from pursuing damages in the country's patent courts would be a 'catastrophe for global innovation.'

Huawei Warns of Patent Pain

Disrupting Huawei's access to U.S. patent courts would threaten the intellectual property system that supports tech development, said the company.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei speaks at a roundtable at the telecom giant's headquarters in Shenzhen in southern China.

Huawei Says Sanctions Will Cost Billions

Huawei's founder said that the Chinese telecom giant's revenue will be $30 billion less than forecast, which will also impact U.S. suppliers.

In this April 2, 2019, photo, Liu Zixing, a mining ore businessman, right, rides a virtual reality 'gyroscope' in a VR theme park in Nanchang, China. One of the largest virtual reality theme parks in the world has opened its doors in southwestern China, sporting 42 rides and exhibits from VR bumper cars to VR shoot-em-ups. It's part of an effort by Beijing to get ordinary people excited about the technology - part of a long-term bet that VR will come into widespread use.

Chinese Bet Big on VR

VR Star park offers 42 rides and exhibits, including VR bumper cars and VR shoot-'em-ups.

In this Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, residents pass by a security checkpoint and surveillance cameras mounted on a street in Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region. The Chinese database Victor Gevers found online was not just a collection of old personal details. The discovery by Gevers, a Dutch cybersecurity researcher who revealed it on Twitter last week, has given a rare glimpse into China’s extensive surveillance of Xinjiang, a remote region home to an ethnic minority population that is largely Muslim. The area has been blanketed with police checkpoints and security cameras that apparently are doing more than just recording what happens. The database Gevers found appears to have been recording people’s movements tracked by facial recognition technology, he said, logging more than 6.7 million coordinates in a span of 24 hours.

Chinese Database Shows Depth of Surveillance

It was a compilation of real-time data on more than 2.5 million people, their movements tracked by facial recognition software.

In this file image from undated video footage run by China's CCTV via AP Video, Muslim trainees work in a garment factory at the Hotan Vocational Education and Training Center in Hotan, Xinjiang, northwest China. China's state broadcaster CCTV aired the report Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, on the so-called vocational education and training center, with Muslim trainees telling the camera how they have been saved from dangerous and poor lives and how grateful they are to the authorities.

Sportswear Made in Internment Camp

It can be difficult to stop products made with forced labor from getting into the global supply chain, even though such imports are illegal in the U.S.

In this Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, China's new-generation stealth unmanned combat aircraft prototype, the CH-7, is displayed during the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Airshow China 2018, in Zhuhai city, south China's Guangdong province.

China Unveils Combat Drone

The CH-7's chief designer Shi Wen says the aircraft can "fly long hours, scout and strike the target when necessary."

In this Oct. 31, 2018, photo, Huang Yongzhen, CEO of Watrix, demonstrates the use of his firm's gait recognition software at his company's offices in Beijing. A Chinese technology startup hopes to begin selling software that recognizes people by their body shape and how they walk, enabling identification when faces are hidden from cameras. Already used by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, “gait recognition” is part of a major push to develop artificial-intelligence and data-driven surveillance across China, raising concern about how far the technology will go.

Chinese 'Gait Recognition' Tech

It's already used by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is seen in Hong Kong, Monday, Oct. 22, 2018. The bridge, the world's longest cross-sea project, which has a total length of 55 kilometers (34 miles), will have opening ceremony in Zhuhai on Oct. 23.

China Opens Mega-Bridge

The 34-mile-long bridge cost $20 billion.