The patent system is very strong evidence that there are shortcuts. So many that we have laws designed to protect and incentivize version 1.

Sure, there’s some hard lessons along the way; but far, far, far fewer than figuring it out in the first place.

And this misplaced assumption about how China won’t be able to innovate when standing on the shoulders of giants (with you saying ‘are always going to catch up’) looks only at the last 100 years and forgets the millenia before it. The West is not magically superior.