Fwiw, American industry has given away a lot for free - you could include large parts of the open source movement in that - and all the "free" VC backed services like facebook would be another prong of the same comparison. I would rather compare this way, that China is gaining soft power and goodwill, in the technology and innovation sense, in a way that's similar to how USA has done in the past.

Yes it's only relatively recently that US politics has taken a turn towards being more defensive and protectionist.

The tech industry along with US foreign policy has become much more zero-sum in its ideology in recent years, and I think that's a tremendous mistake.