China is already leading in R&D among its peers in the "middle-income" category.
People worry too much about this kind of stuff
It just takes time to let all the kinds of policies, R&D to take effect. But when they do, the economy and tech will rocket!
Like a huge ship, while it is difficult to change course, but when it does change, it carries such momentum behind that it will steamroll everything on front of it
If you only compare middle-income countries, China blows away every other country out of the water in terms of % of GDP devoted to R&D spending.
But yes, R&D spending takes some time before the results appear.