Why is democracy relevant here? Seems like a rather random words thrown in to support your point, without any actual relevance. We're talking supply-chain here. And capitalism. Both really dont care what and if people voted.
They kind of do. The reason various Asian companies pulled ahead in their own respective industries is top-down leadership and support. You dump money into them, tell them what to do, and lower the overhead of competition and you can create a world-class company.
We, in the US, can't really do that. We try a little bit, but we don't fully commit so it doesn't work out.