There's also the fact that China is not as burdened by legacy infrastructure and business models. For example, consider high speed rail in California. Due to t

There's also the fact that China is not as burdened by legacy infrastructure and business models. For example, consider high speed rail in California. Due to the existing rail system, the marginal increase in economic benefit gained by building a new high speed system is fairly small. Compare this situation to high speed rail in China. Without the existence of a fairly efficient existing system, the economic benefit to building the high speed lines was massive. This historical pattern is somewhat common. Rising societies have all of the latest advances gained by building previous systems, and none of the existing societies' technical debt. They get the newest and shiniest technological base, simply because they're building it now.