Consider cosmetics. Historically regarded as pure marketing, not technology. Lipstick and moisturizer. The kind of industry you’d expect governments to ignore entirely.I don't know about that. I can think of a ~2000 year old Chinese story about an entrepreneur who came across a village where everyone had unchapped hands and faces despite it being winter. It turns out they had made an ointment from some local bush. The point of the story is that the guy guys as much of it as he can and then carries a few valleys away to where an army is encamped and they're suffering from the cold, and he trades the ointment for an estate.
I think a big reason other countries (and especially the US) keep underestimating China is neglecting the fact that they've had a more or less contiguously operating state for millennia.
