People like. me? I was once the Chairman of an International Bank Loan Committee for the one of the largest Banks in the US. I think I understand global economics.
Your not a Design Engineer so you have not had your work stolen like so many of us have. So you definitely have no idea what it is like.
When you say, "Chinese engineers can't design shit", your dismissal of ethnic Chinese smacks of an ignorance that has seen this great country of ours lose its technological advantage. Morris Chang, an ethnic Chinese grew TSMC into a leader in manufacturing innovation of the fabrication of semiconductors for the world. I am respectful of the intellect of people like him and am concerned that blind prejudice will prevent us from seeing the challenges we face.
Design and Fab are two different things. TSMC is Taiwan, we dealt with them a lot. There are many good Chinese Engineers working in Taiwan and in America but in China itself the notion of designing something from scratch is seen as illogical when you can just buy a few units and reverse the technology or take advantage of short term thinking Foreign CEO's that are willing to hand them the IP so that they can use Chinese factories to build the product for less and make more money.
Here is a Nice example of how China works.:
Hand it Over
Unfortunately for China they are not interested in the deal so the people in China suffer with a useless locally designed product.
I agree at lot of the original growth in Mainland China has been through copying US technology. However, they are growing their renewable energy sector and have more EVs on the road than any other country,
Well we agree on something. Although saying a lot of their growth might be closer to almost all of their growth.
Your notion of "Original Growth" is wrong. For example five years ago DJI cut a deal with Flir to make thermal cameras for drones.
Flir went ahead and setup manufacturing in China and within 2 years they got the boot. Then China suddenly went from having no market share in the Thermal camera market to now flooding the Market with Thermal Cameras. The IP theft has never ceased, it has only slowed because the last two administrations have put the brakes on companies in the USA sending tech to China.
As for renewables, they also use as much coal as they can get their hands on!
If it was not for their foot in the mouth move with Australia they would not be moving so fast on renewables.
That in my book is innovation on a macro level. They have electrified their transportation sector without copying any of our technology, unless you think utilizing hundred year old electric motor designs is copying technology? Innovation is applying common sense to solve problems.
How is it not copying? It's technology that they copied from Germany and Japan. The Japanese were using bullet trains for Decades before them. The Chinese did their typical maneuver of having companies from abroad come in and build the first set of trains and rails and then they copied it and booted them out. Now they make their own.
The same thing for the Fighter Jets and Rockets. They were bought from Russia and then copied and improved on.
It's all so Laughable because even now they still cannot figure out how to make a reliable Jet engine. Almost all of their engines in their Fighter Jets are built in Russia. They have been struggling to get their latest fighter Fighter the J20 to fly with Chinese built engines.
(Wanna know why?)