China has a long history of espionage and theft to jumpstart many of their technologies someone else developed.

As they should.

Why should technology be gate-kept from less developed nations simply because they can't afford it? That's just a way to keep them underdeveloped, trapped in perpetual dependency on the more developed nations for so-called "intellectual property"

Literally EVERYTHING developed in the United States was innovated by an employee and then the value of that innovation was stolen by their employer.

The United States doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to claiming to innovate. The people who do the actual innovation aren't mentioned and barely get paid enough money to live.

China literally claims to be a communist country. Well, what's that mean? It means that when knowledge is known, it's fair game for the country to use in order to make things better for everyone in the country.

The United States, on the other hand, has the ability to produce enough medication for literally every person who needs it, but creates laws so that businesses can control the production of drugs in order to make as much money as possible regardless of however many people die in the US from not getting the medicines they need.

Make it make sense.

How many skulls did you measure?

China has a long history of espionage and theft to jumpstart many of their technologies someone else developed

Well yeah, like south korea before them, and japan before korea, and america before japan, and europe before america... basically every country that has been a manufacturing powerhouse at some point "stole" designs then added their own improvements

China has a long history of espionage and theft to jumpstart many of their technologies someone else developed. The US, Europe,

Don't fucking care, the US' entire history is from since its inception has been plunder, stealing and genocide to steal land. The entirety of Europe's history has been colonialism and stealing from Africa and mass killings and misery inflicted there.

If espionage and theft jumpstarting technologies are not "innovative", I've got some news for you about the "innovative" examples of "good" capitalist businesses in the US. Who, by sheer coincidence, peddle the idea that Chinese industry is somehow "less advanced" than ours, yet who we still rely on to make "our" high tech commodities.

And is this soft power? We aren't watching Chinese films and blanket idolizing Chinese culture, like with Japan. No, this is hard power in a sense, of material support. It just looks weird to you since you've only ever seen hard power in the form of existential domination.