The global hierarchy of innovation is undergoing a structural shift that Washington is dangerously slow to acknowledge. For decades, the prevailing narrative in the United States was that China was merely the “world’s factory” — a nation capable of mass-producing Western designs but inherently lacking the creative spark to invent its own.This assumption has been shattered. Today, Beijing is no longer playing catch-up; in sectors ranging from electric vehicles and next-generation nuclear power to hypersonic missiles, China is setting the pace. The central challenge is that China has mastered the entire innovation ecosystem, while the United States has allowed its…