I would guess they are referring to the idea that large established companies (usually monopolies) have little motivation to compete of features/technology, especially when that would cannibalize their main offering. Generally, an engineer working on something at Microsoft or Apple is going to be much less motivated to create new tech than one at a (Chinese) small business. But it gets worse than this: they sometimes hire engineers just to keep them from the competition.
That said, China has its own unique category of underutilized staff: those who are hired to work for state-owned enterprises.
That said, China has its own unique category of underutilized staff: those who are hired to work for state-owned enterprises.