Says who? Chinese technology is converging at US levels.
>You don't get to move from being a third world country with a third world cost base to being a first world country and keep your third world cost base. The two go hand in hand. That's why Chinese manufacturing is beginning to lose it's price advantages over places like Vietnam and Mexico.
Chinese manufacturing has been moving up the value chain since it began its mercantile strategy. It isn't particularly concerned about losing, say, shoe or t shirt manufacturing to Vietnam - because they are strategically pretty useless. It is keeping key industries at home and keeping their cost advantage through a combination of subsidies and suppressing the value of the Yuan. There is NO end in sight for this policy.
>China has a very long way to go before it becomes a technological rather than manufacturing powerhouse.
It's already there.
>Assembling high tech iPhone components
My Xiaomi is pretty much every bit as good as an iPhone and 1/4 the cost.
>Russia is desperate.
Russia is not desperate. This is a story spun by the Obama administration to make it look like Obama isn't weak and ineffectual and that his sanctions actually achieved something meaningful (they didn't).
That was at the root of all those silly stories about Putin sitting alone for lunch at those G20 meetings. It's the most ridiculous, transparent PR ploy I've ever seen, and weirdly it's working.