[Jensson]

> If anything, their tech companies have been largely laggards on the world stage with most being simple derivatives of western brands capitalizing on their large population base and barrier to foreign entry.

That is because they started out without basically anything 25 years ago as one of the poorest countries in the world. It takes about 25 years to build up your infrastructure by using capitalism, they are there now, today they can start to innovate.

Before they caught up the most productive effort will always be to just build up all the standard infrastructure instead of trying to innovate, so of course they didn't innovate. But today there is no such thing, you will see them transition to an innovative economy just like Japan did 50 years ago.

Edit: Note that tech company includes computer hardware manufacturing, those companies are absolutely a core part to Chinas miracle, being able to produce high end computer parts at scale requires a very developed economy. If not for US bans China would be even more dominating there.