[hyperpallium]

The key point of the comment I replied to is that "scientific/technological progress" has only been incremental, not leaps of creativity.

I can't speak to the factual accuracy, and it can be difficult to separate revolutionary from evolutionary, since even the greatest of leaps have antecedents and stood on the shoulders of giants (e.g. Newton)... but with such a huge population, a large proportion educated, there would be many extremely smart people capable of great work. But the only such Chinese people I know of are not in China (one famous e.g. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao). So, maybe, as you say, there's a brain-drain.

And maybe I just don't hear about the ones in China (and maybe the very best work on sensitive commercial and government/military projects - e.g. CPU designers).