Like it or not, robotics is becoming the next major front in US-China competition, and the two ecosystems are already deeply intertwined. For years, US robotics companies could make a reasonable tradeoff: build the intelligence in-house, source much of the hardware, and deal with the supply chain later. That is getting harder. The FCC’s recent decision turned the origin of advanced robotic hardware into a market-access issue in the US. Localize everything in a humanoid except the joints, and you still only get to ~40% US content. The current threshold is 65%, rising to 75% in 2029. A few of us at @TheEtnaLabs spent two weeks on the ground across Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai to understand how China’s robotics supply chain actually works—and what it would take for US teams to close the gap. Here's what we saw. Full report linked at the end.