the West does not have a monopoly on smart scientists and researchers
this may be true, but because of the CCP (and things like "social credit score"), it is my impression+opinion that engineers in China tend to defend higher ups or "status quo", even when blatantly wrong, in lieu of taking an initiative and getting things done. It is my opinion that they are fearing for their jobs. Were it not for an NDA I could describe a situation in more detail where an OEM product started to fail after they made an unannounced design change at the factory in China. I assisted in troubleshooting the root cause, and proposed a solution that was a compromise between the old and new designs (it worked perfectly when tested, and many units were retrofitted with the fix). The solution was basically rejected (keep in mind it took the form of a customer request), with no real reason provided, almost like a denial that the problem even existed. Much later the engineers in China made a "fix" that was, in short, like "using a bigger hammer".