Abstract
Advanced manufacturing is the pillar for building a modern economic system. We measured the level of high-quality development of manufacturing (HQDM) in China, and found that it has gone through the three stages of expansion, cultivation, and promotion. Spatially, it is characterized as "high in the east, low in the west" and "fast in the west, slow in the east", and presents non-equilibrium characteristics. To overcome the subjective bias introduced by artificially set clubs, we utilize a data-driven nonlinear time-varying factor model for clustering into four convergent clubs, where provinces with higher intensity of environmental regulation and environmental preference tend to move closer to the clubs with a higher level of HQDM. We reveal the convergence patterns and regional differences in HQDM, which provides a new perspective for determining the trends of high-quality manufacturing development, thus allowing for policy recommendations targeted at narrowing the manufacturing development gap.