I think the point though is that it's only fair to compare companies when they compete head to head in similar markets.
It isn't that interesting to say China has a huge mobile payments market dominated by Chinese companies when that is almost entirely due to a lack of an existing CC infrastructure.
It is interesting when Chinese network companies (Huawei, TP-link, etc.) are able to out-compete US based companies in their home market.
> What's worth more, inventing something or commercializing it?
And hasn't been "successfully commercializing inventions, no matter who invented it" been a staple of the US economical success for decades, nay, over a century?
If the US isn't very good at developing new products because of burdensome regulations, small market size, slowness, demographics, etc. then maybe it's just not very good at technology. Other countries are bad at technology because of poor education, access to finance, skill of workers, culture, etc. They're still bad at technology, whatever the reason.