If there's actual smuggling of designs or trade secrets going on, I'd be more interested. But if it's just "the rocket looks the same on the outside", that's hardly "industrial espionage".
They're even espionaging from themselves in the future!
Dude, have you ever _been_ in China? They don't need espionage, they're now way ahead of the world in technology, except in a few areas like biotech research and semiconductor manufacturing.
For the last decade, China has been having more engineers in _training_ than the total number of engineers in the US. Sure, the quality of Chinese universities is not that great, but the sheer number of them has its own power.
One feels like the future. The other feels like you will get shot.
SpaceX is a rare bird - a space startup that actually achieved not just spaceflight, but (so far only partial) reusability of launchers. Most space startups died long before that, including Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace. Given that they are gone, we don't think of them often, but the total graveyard of defunct space startups is quite sizeable.
Russia seems to be slowly losing their space capabilities. The EU still does not have a human-rated launcher. These aren't small entities either.
Getting to space is a dangerous business with extremely thin security margins, where previous experience matters a lot.
I think China will eventually have reusable rockets, but it will take some time.
It's the second-mover advantage. Once you know that something is possible, you can often avoid exploring all the dead ends.
Few layman know this but France is one of the biggest industrial espionage players active in the US and Europe, after Israel of course.
In fact, according to Wikileaks diplomatic cables from Berlin quote: "France is the country that conducts the most industrial espionage [in Europe], even more than China or Russia."
Basically, every nation on the planet engages in espionage for its own benefit if they can get away with it. There's no honor amongst thieves.
Singling out China as if they're the only ones doing it, or the ones doing it the most, is both naive and hilarious.
As opposed to...?