In that context, data binding means that you observe the model and set up a data flow so that you only need to update the specific parts of the view when the mo

In that context, data binding means that you observe the model and set up a data flow so that you only need to update the specific parts of the view when the model changes. JSX doesn't do that as all it does is render the view. You need to detect and trigger repaints separately and when that happens it will blindly redraw everything instead of just updating the relevant DOM nodes. Also, JSX is a relatively lightweight wrapper that uses native JS constructs for looping and subroutines. This is in contrast to things like Angular where the templating system has its own way of scoping variables, abstracting out subtemplates, looping over arrays, doing conditionals, etc. Angular must use these special DSLs and abstraction mechanisms because there is no way to do full data binding with just plain old Javascript code.