It's not jaded, it's an accurate understanding of China's historically mercantile attitude.
I cannot for the life of me think of a single foreign product or company operating in China that China hasn't copied for their own version (or ripped off, like the fake Apple stores). The only exceptions are culture companies, where the brand matters more than the product (Pizza Hut; McDonalds; Starbucks).
Microsoft, Intel and Apple seems to do well, just on top of my head, many car companies are also doing well, although German and Japanese cars sell better than American ones.
After some googling, looks like Nike, Coca-cola, Gillette are all doing reasonably well.
Microsoft, Intel, and apple all have irreplaceable products (custom OS, etc).
What does Uber have besides boatloads of cash and existing market share? From s consumer perspective Uber's competition works just as well (for the most part), whereas alternatives to windows are Limited to MacOS, Linux.
>Nike
Great brand of shoes. "Just do it"! More than just the thing you run in.
>Coca-cola
The classic soda. Even Pepsi's cutesy challenge barely wobbled Coke's throne.
>Gillette
"The best a man can get!" Lovely brand. Before I moved to DSC I used them all the time. But razors are just strips of metal after all.
Basically my point is with enough capital and know-how, anyone can create anything. But without an effective and compelling brand, you're a nobody.
China makes quality hardware these days (Xiaomi for example), but "cheap Chinese crap" is such an entrenched phrase it practically rolls off the tongue.
Parent comment meant Microsoft's revenue in China. While exact figures are hard to come by, they most certainly do not make tens of billions of dollars from China.
Not necessarily true, just look at soccer in China in the past two weeks. Just buy all the Lebron's until you figure out the template and can mass produce it.
They can't buy all the Lebrons. They don't want to play in China. During the last NBA strike problems, the same held true: nobody of consequence abandoned ship, they chose to wait it out.
The ~450 NBA players are set to make more than all the Fortune 500 CEOs combined in salary terms, with the new TV rights. China currently can't replicate everything that goes into paying for that (we're talking about $35 billion in salary in just the next 10 years). Buying a few star players won't elevate the overall league, it'll make the league a joke.
China has an economy that is about to be half the size of the US as they are forced to significantly devalue the yuan in the next 12-18 months, and their economy is sinking under a massive and perpetually expanding load of debt. They can't afford to play the game the way they used to, where they'd foolishly pay N times what something is worth just to make it happen. Those days are over, economic normalization is inbound (if they're lucky).
The CSL isn't buying the Lebrons of soccer, though.
Edit to add: And there's more to a successful and interesting league than recognizable players; moreso in soccer than basketball (and even moreso in American football).
I cannot for the life of me think of a single foreign product or company operating in China that China hasn't copied for their own version (or ripped off, like the fake Apple stores). The only exceptions are culture companies, where the brand matters more than the product (Pizza Hut; McDonalds; Starbucks).