The scene has made the rounds of news wires: at the opening ceremony of the Global Developer Conference on Embodied AI (GDPS) 2025, on 13 December in Shanghai, the humanoid robot Unitree G1, dressed in a white Tai-Chi outfit, executed a series of movements — starting posture, Wild Horse Parts Mane, White Crane Spreads Wings — alongside human martial artists, according to Yicai Global. A few moments earlier, the AgiBot (Zhiyuan) Lingxi X2, costumed as a lion, simulated a lion dance troupe by walking on flower-decorated poles to the rhythm of drums. And for the first time, two manufacturers presented as direct rivals took the stage together, their very first joint humanoid performance, as noted by DigiTimes.

The spontaneous reading was the same everywhere: here is the glaring proof of the intelligence of Chinese humanoids. It is precisely where folklore blurs the view. For the summit that orchestrates the spectacle sells, in the same motion, what explains it.

The choreography is not a feat, it is a product sheet

At the same GDPS, Unitree launched its developer platform. According to Interesting Engineering, this platform allows remote control of humanoid robots from a smartphone, using the phone’s camera to guide movements. The same media reports that it features preloaded action routines: martial arts, a The Twist dance and ballet sequences.

In other words, the Tai-Chi presented as a demonstration of autonomy corresponds exactly to what Unitree commercialises: scripted playback and/or teleoperation, staged in white costume. The right question is therefore not “do robots know how to do Tai-Chi?”, but: does the choreography prove anything that a preloaded routine would not suffice to produce? Making a humanoid chain martial arts postures is the use the manufacturer itself highlights in its application store. The spectacle does not demonstrate intelligence; it demonstrates that the product does what it is sold for.

Two “rivals” on stage, one same state calendar

It remains to understand why two competitors choose this specific summit for their first joint appearance. The clue is in the programme. The first joint stage appearance of AgiBot and Unitree falls on the very day Shanghai announces, at the GDPS, the launch of the construction of the Zhangjiang AI Innovation Town, according to Futunn.

The timing is not trivial. According to Yicai Global, the city aims to bring the core of its embodied AI industry to over 50 billion yuan by 2027. Viewed from this angle, the “rivalry” between the two brands fades in favour of another image: that of a national sector put on stage. Competition becomes set dressing; the photo of the two champions side by side serves a public policy narrative, aligned with a cornerstone laying and a budget target.

True leadership is not danced, it is counted

If one seeks hard proof of China’s advance, it is not in the dance but in the volumes. According to the research firm Omdia, cited by Fox News, AgiBot dominated global humanoid deliveries in 2025 with 5 168 units out of approximately 13 000 shipped worldwide that year. It is this metric, and not a white crane posture, that says something concrete about the industrial balance of power.

The contrast sums up the entire gap between staging and capacity. A delivery figure measures an industry that produces and sells; a choreography measures mostly the quality of a preloaded routine and a stage setup. The two can coexist, but they do not say the same thing — and only the latter was projected under the drums.

What remains undemonstrated

The GDPS also hosted a competition intended to evaluate robots on industrial assembly tasks, emergency rescue and domestic services. Until the actual success rates of these trials are published, nothing allows distinguishing autonomous capability from a scripted or tele-guided demonstration — the very process that Unitree’s platform makes commonplace.

Cultural folklore is therefore not the subject: it is the screen. Behind the Tai-Chi and the lion dance, an industry and public policy narrative is played out, where the autonomy of humanoids remains a promise to be verified. The real news from Shanghai was not that robots know how to dance. It was that a state knew how to make the narrative dance.