Yeah, I haven't understood why people speak this narrative so much. Of course China had to play catch-up for awhile, but that never meant that it's citizens were somehow incapable of innovation. In fact, due to their patent laws being so lax (afaik, I may be misinformed here), companies are forced to constantly innovate in order to keep their products in the most desirable place on the market rather than relying on a 10 year patent stifling any sort of competition around one particular product for them.