I think that's the point. All the things that made early 20th-century New York great are happening in Shanghai now and at a much larger scale. That it's happening in a country under a totalitarian regime is not in line with Western sensibilities, but the assertion itself is reasonable and pretty objective if you've visited Shanghai recently.

It's an amazing city that (in startup terms) still has a growth mindset. New York, London, San Francisco and other Western cities behave like they've grown about as much as they want to.