> Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well
That is a particulary narrow set of blinders. Even in the US it is not true - MCity and U-M's research in Michigan is a good counter example. And when you look over the pond, there's a lot more going on in Stuttgart and Munich than in the Valley (with less breathless hype but more actual progress).
Of course for Chinese car builders it is easier to poach US engineers, research and know-how to build their own industry - less problems with the language than in Germany, less distrust given that Californian research is half run by Chinese grad students anyway.