[sceew]

China free-rode off of that investment by adopting Western technology with no virtually no R&D, greatly benefiting.

[pm90]

The US did an almost similar thing, riding off European technology with virtually no R&D greatly benefiting. And before that, Europe did a similar thing by riding off Chinese (gunpowder and paper) and Indian (arabic numeral) technology, with virtually no R&D, greatly benefiting.... See how hollow that argument is?

[ska]

   The US did an almost similar thing

Not an almost similar thing. Effectively the exact same thing, including the flagrant disregard of IP, etc.

It's worth thinking about when discussing what countries "should" and "shouldn't" do, as you note.

[gajjanag]

Just to add to the above, this is also reflected in historical GDP figures (pre Renaissance say): https://infogr.am/Share-of-world-GDP-throughout-history