Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

On Monday, China's General Administration of Customs released foreign trade data for the first 11 months of this year, revealing that the country's trade surplus has exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. When I heard this statistic on the news broadcast, I was driving into Dalang, a small town in South China's Guangdong Province. One in every five sweaters produced worldwide comes from Dalang.

Known simply as the "sweater capital of China," Dalang is now trying to redefine itself - not just as the world's workshop for knitwear, but as a laboratory for the future of manufacturing. The story of Dalang illustrates how Chinese manufacturing can continue to progress even amid pressure and supply chain disruptions from the West.

Located in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, near Huawei's R&D headquarters in Songshan Lake, Dalang sits at the intersection of traditional industry and technological ambition. A decade ago, most of its workshops still relied on hand cranked machines, with human labor serving as the main engine of production. The equipment was old, and efficiency was low. Today, more than 80 percent of its knitting machines are computerized and networked. Rows of domestic smart looms hum day and night in nearly every factory. 

From the "replacing humans with machines initiative" launched in 2012 to today's era of "algorithmic weaving," Dalang has achieved one of the most visible upgrades in China's manufacturing landscape - shifting from labor density to technological density. The rise of Chinese made equipment underpins this transformation.  

At the International Woolen Trade Center in the heart of the town, the streets are lined with storefronts displaying an astonishing variety of sweaters. Here, the full circle of Dalang's knitwear ecosystem becomes clear - from yarn development to garment design to brand sales. Local officials proudly note that the annual production of wool sweaters and knitted garments here exceeds 900 million pieces, exported to countries and regions worldwide. A new design can be produced within two hours, and the town's annual industry turnover exceeds 72 billion yuan ($10 billion).  

In just a decade, the traditional apparel industry has achieved a digital transformation - a miniature version of China's broader manufacturing leap in mid- and lower-end equipment. However, just as Chinese manufacturing faces challenges in upgrading, Dalang still encounters significant tests in its high-end equipment.

Local businesses have been working hard in recent years to improve equipment technology. Today, domestically produced machinery and equipment are capable of manufacturing advanced, integrated garment-making machines. The local government continuously encourages wool textile enterprises to upgrade and modernize their facilities. Yet, Chinese manufacturers in Dalang still import high-end machines from Germany and Japan. Those imported machines - nicknamed "sample makers" or "seamless knitters" - are reserved for the most intricate patterns, the finest yarns, and the most demanding craftsmanship. Their numbers are shrinking, yet they refuse to disappear completely, because the gap runs deeper than hardware - it lies in control algorithms, system architecture and embedded logic.  

A technician explained that German and Japanese machines can run long periods while maintaining almost zero stitch deviation. Their control systems continuously calibrate yarn tension, optimize the knitting path in real time and adjust automatically when multiple threads interlace. Chinese machines can imitate this behavior but haven't yet internalized it; their "brains," as engineers call them, are still learning to think for themselves.  

Both Japan and Germany have long established a subtler form of control - a "soft barrier." The machines can be sold, but the software remains closed. Firmware updates require authentication through overseas servers. Some high density models even require an explanation of end use before shipment. For the buyer, this means a multimillion yuan (approximately $140,000) machine may still need remote maintenance from engineers abroad, while the source code remains locked behind firewalls. This invisible perimeter of intellectual property is less about politics and more about maintaining industrial leverage.  

During my stay in Dalang, I saw firsthand that efforts were being made to close that gap. The town has launched an "Intelligent Weaving Innovation Center" to develop homegrown control systems. For an industry measured in millions of machines, this represents a structural turning point. The question is no longer, "Can we make it?" but rather, "Can we make it with precision?"

After all, true advancement is not about replacing others; it's about building one's own system outside of theirs. China once won through speed, scale and cost; the next success will depend on algorithms, standards and branding.  

The challenges ahead are clear: independence in control systems, maturing domestic algorithms, gaining a stronger voice in setting global standards, and, perhaps hardest of all, exercising patience. As the machines in Dalang keep knitting, each rhythmic stitch seems to echo a deeper rhythm of national progress - a reminder that the road ahead is long, but the direction is specific.

The author is a senior editor with the People's Daily and currently a senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. dinggang@globaltimes.com.cn. Follow him on X @dinggangchina