Abstract:    The paper analyzes the motivations of industrial transfer from such three forces as the "attractive force" of the place where the industry moves into, the "propulsive force" and "pulling force" of the place where the industry moves out, and it is believed that industrial robots are a typical inward "pulling force" of the place where the industry moves out, which will affect the cross-regional transfer of manufacturing. Based on this, some research hypotheses have been put forward in this paper. In order to verify the rationality of the hypothesis, on the one hand this paper draws on the measurement method of industrial space transfer by Qin Chenglin and Xiong Xueru (2013), by calculating the location quotient index of the automobile manufacturing industry in 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2008 to 2019, and performing differential processing, we can analyze whether there is a slowdown in the trend of cross-regional transfer in the automobile manufacturing industry. The analysis shows that most of the provincial-level regions in China that have promoted industrial robots on a large scale, their automobile manufacturing industry has undergone a more obvious transition from transfer-out to transfer-in after 2012.On the other hand, this paper uses China′s provincial panel data and China′s customs import and export data from 2008 to 2019 to construct a panel regression model in order to analyze the impact of industrial robots on the "stickiness" of the regional manufacturing industry and its spatial transfer. And from the perspective of labor prices, it further explored whether there is a threshold value for the specialization rate of the manufacturing area affected by industrial robots. The research draws the following conclusions: (1) Industrial robots has changed the demand structure of production factors in the manufacturing sector and the matching efficiency of production factors in various regions, alleviating the cost pressure faced by the development of China′s manufacturing industry, and by enhancing the transfer of industries. The "pulling force" is manifested in the increase in the specialization rate of manufacturing regions, which inhibits the cross-regional transfer of manufacturing. (2) When the labor price reaches a certain level, industrial robots can effectively enhance the "stickiness" of the industrial transfer area, thereby inhibiting the cross-regional transfer of manufacturing. Based on the above analysis, this paper believes that promoting the large-scale popularization and application of industrial robots will help China′s manufacturing industry to achieve " labor-saving" and "intelligence" automatic upgrades, and alleviate the development dilemma caused by the gradual disappearance of labor cost advantages, and maintain a dominant position in the "lower competition". In addition, industrial robots have weakened the importance of labor dividends to the spatial layout of the manufacturing industry. The trend of manufacturing to "automation and intelligence" will lead to the large-scale deployment of industrial robots in the manufacturing industry in the future, and the use cost of industrial robots will become an important direction for the manufacturing industry to obtain new comparative advantages.Further analysis believes that clean energy such as hydropower, photovoltaics, and wind power in the central and western regions of China is extremely abundant, and has a cost advantage in the application and promotion of industrial robots. Coupled with the decline in transportation costs brought about by the continuous improvement of transportation infrastructure, the manufacturing industry that is more dependent on industrial robots in the future has the potential to transfer to the western region. Although the eastern region will also embed industrial robots in the manufacturing industry, its motivation is to strengthen its own resistance to the impact of uncertain factors, obviously different from that of the central and western regions. Therefore, the promotion of the large-scale application of industrial robots in the eastern region should aim at "intelligent" production, promote the deep integration and upgrading of the manufacturing process, improve product quality, seize market opportunities, and promote the overall upgrade of the manufacturing value chain.

Key words: substitution effect of industrial robots, location quotient, "pulling force" of the place where the industry moves out, industrial transfer