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".