If you step back to look at the big picture, it's the US that created the era-defining technological innovations post-WWII and reaped most of the benefits of such innovations. Japan has a record of lacking such innovations. What Japan had was process innovations and perfectionism on mature product categories that moved slowly, such as the ICE auto industry. Most people think the Plaza Accord accelerated, rather than caused, Japan's decline.
China's proven strength is now called "fast follower." The US is worried that China can catch up so quickly that the US can no longer profit from its own innovations. Articles like this are not meant to spell out the solutions, and certainly not every sentence is accurate. But the idea of thinking about national characteristics and strength is very useful. To be clear, each of the three countries has done scaling, process innovation, and technological innovation. But the general strength of each country so far is pretty clear.
My view of China's SOEs is that they are mostly process innovators. I can't imagine the next big thing will come out of SOE. But my defense for China's SOEs is that their role is building the tech and economic foundation for China. I believe it gives Chinese innovators an edge over US innovators.
I have faith that more era-defining innovations will come out of China in the next 10 years, and my money is entirely on Chinese companies. That said, my bets are mostly on Chinese culture because I think it's even more underestimated than Chinese tech.
