Using IP theft to improve a nation's economic and scientific standing is pretty common. The US did it too [0][1]. This is not whataboutery, but a simple fact that industrial espionage was the ladder that today's developed nations used, only to then kick away the ladder when the rest of the world tried to catch up.

0: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-industrial-esp... 1: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/09/spy-vs-spy-3