Until maybe 10 years ago, I would have agreed that all or at least most of the Chinese products were no better than copies of Western products.

However during recent years, at least during the last 5 or 6 years, both among commercial products and among the published research papers, I have seen far more innovation from China than from USA.

Such underestimation of the capabilities of a competitor, like the assumption that without subsidies or lax regulations they would not still be better, can only doom USA.

While these claims about subsidies and lax regulations are ubiquitous in USA for justifying failures, I have yet to see any proof or any accurate numeric data supporting them.

I doubt that China really has laxer environmental regulations than USA. What is likely to happen is that in China it must be much easier to avoid the enforcing of the regulations, by bribing the authorities.

Perhaps there are governmental subsidies in China, but in USA I never see the start of any significant private investment without great subsidies, at least from the local government, in the form of various kinds of tax breaks.

This kind of governmental subsidies that are very common in USA are only seldom permitted in other countries, e.g. in Europe.