We have very different definitions of innovation.

Respondants:

Please, stop lying on the internet. It's not healthy. Stop making things up.

Source:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation

Making cars faster or cheaper isn't an "innovation". Making a flying car is innovation. Inventing the car is invention.

Systematic government-aided intellectual property theft, lax labor laws, low wages and low standards of living aren't innovative.

The word you are looking for is "invention". Innovation instead means exactly refining and improving existing things.

Your understanding of the situation is over a decade out of date. The Chinese are outright innovating at this point, they are well past the copy-paste stage. If you'd like to catch up, this is a good place to start:

https://www.youtube.com/@Wheelsboy/videos

And btw, they are making flying cars as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBp96YGStIQ