I agree with your overall assessment, but I think some of the reasoning is not totally correct.
Joint Venture's issue is less technological, but more business. SAIC must balance the needs of their JV partners against their own. On top of this, SAIC is government owned corporation, so any bad faith actions by SAIC would be interpreted as state action against foreign partners which would harm potential future investment.
India is a perfect example of how harmful that can be. Ford left, GM left, etc.
Tech transfer stemming from JV was only one piece of the puzzle. The JV formation also provided exposure to western business practices and modern management techniques, over time building a competent cadre of business people who can subsequently bring the expertise elsewhere as well. Another piece would be providing a springboard for overseas educated and settled Chinese to return to China in a more familiar corporate setting. It sounds like a silly example, but you look at KFC China and actually it was quite important in this regard.
Executing tech transfer without the proper foundation is basically dooming yourself to failure.
Again India, you look at the Su-30, they had technology transfer agreement in place, but even today cannot build their own Flankers. When they tried to force technology transfer for Rafale, Dassault refused to warranty locally assembled aircraft because they could not guarantee the quality.
Back to the auto industry, Proton which had full support of the Malaysian government became a joke. So many decades and they could not even build a car that was better than Geely.
