[petra]

And even without being a malicious front, you can see them as part of the Chinese economic strategy, moving away from manufacturing to innovation/marketing .

And it looks quite nice: Xiaomi build a phone brand. Uses brand to become a consumer electronic start-up hub(offering startups, Chinese startups, a great supply chain, marketing, IP protection - all the hard things for those startups) as a way to rapidly scale. And they will have better access, and preference to Chinese silicon suppliers(think the esp32 , a great chip, afaik it's only inside Chinese products) rising that industry.