Comment by ValentineC

If you replace "China" with some other countries with large offshore engineering centres, your statement would still hold true today.

China managed to copy, improve, and localise for their Chinese-reading market, then oust competition through good use of the Great Firewall (though I wonder if that specifically was an unintended consequence).

Many other countries, especially the English-speaking ones that don't have a great firewall to keep their market buying locally, still need to compete with US tech giants for "taste".