This is literally a repeat of the whole “China only make low quality cheap stuff” argument.

“All they do is copy.”

And now, oops they are world leaders in EVs, batteries, solar, drones, just to name a few on the biggest consumer facing things.

"Success leaves clues"

You gotta start somewhere and you can start at page 1 or page 10 and that time, energy and cost you saved starting 9 pages later can be put into making whatever it is you're building better than the original.

The US, and every other country, is full of derivatives or straight up copies. No one is getting super mad at the generic cheerios at the grocery store. It's hypocrisy.