Lab equipment doesn't need to be newly purchased for every new research and only make up small fraction of research cost, most professors can tell you they mostly ask money for people, not new equipment. Even for new equipment the actual expensive ones tend to be infrastructure related such as wind tunnels, supercomputers, cyclotrons, etc. The more expensive and bespoke something is the more likely it is to be domestic or just built in-house.
Commercial R&D might be different, but commercial R&D also don't publish nearly as much.
China is superior, it's past the time we pretend its not, being superior doesn't mean you have to be arrogant and China isn't going around refusing to collaborate with anyone. The idea that learning from others is weakness and arrogance is strength is very much an American thing, not China.
