This just completely ignores the massive sums of money Chinese companies are spending on R&D. I'm sure that China engages in industrial espionage, as do many countries, but chalking up China's development into higher-value-added economic sectors to espionage leaves out the fact that they now spend more on R&D than Japan, Germany and South Korea combined.
There comes a time when stealing and integrating IP is not worth the effort. See the 5g development thats going on, where Huawei is undisputed king from what i gathered they are outspending R&D the next two competitor combine.
Off course they will now also receive a lot of patent licensing income. Now that 5g is being rolled out..
