Why is China smashing its tech industry?

I will not apologize for being an American patriot, and for wanting a decrease of western malfeasance and marginal competence. But I do think that China gets it right much more often than not. Dan Wang's quoted article, and his other writings, emphasize China's ambivalence and distaste for the western (popular) concept of technology being internet and consumer-driven code. China cares more about the stuff designed by Qualcom, Keysight, Intel, TI, et al than the stuff ground out by FAANG.

And China's mind-set stems from collective knowledge of a millennia in the struggles and wars, where the long-term goals were to centralize and control and advance and be the ultimate winner.

I've heard stuff before about the fact that conglomerates like Tencent make it hard for Chinese startups to get money. Is that true and potentially the larger factor?

Given that it's so easy to spend 3+ hours a day on internet entertainment, I find it logical that ad-driven social media is a productivity drain. However, are they simply addressing a symptom of why people get hooked to social media? What's stopping people from watching TV for 5+ hours a day like certain older, retired generations?