Kai-Fu Lee is either an idiot or a liar. The idea that censorship and gov't policy are not the principal reasons for established western tech companies failure in China is absurd. Every single one of his "superior product" examples are network effect businesses where defeating
a scaled entity is impossible (Apple Pay, Amazon, Wechat). As a proxy, just look at Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, SG, HK. Western tech companies dominate and are competitive every single one of these countries. The main reason for this is gov't intervention & policy.