Recently, I received an e-mail from a U.S. electrical products company warning me that, on Oct. 15, the tariff on power supplies and power cords imported to the U.S. from China would increase from 25 percent to 30 percent.

BEIJING—The number of industrial robots in use in China will more than double over the next two years—from 182,000 today to 428,000 by 2017—thus overtaking the robot populations of either North America or the EU’s five largest economies.