China is starting to develop technology of its own, but I don't think will ever catch up with the west on account of the lack of freedom to communicate around the country. Their leaders still have the country in lockdown and do not permit freedom of expression and communication. One of our hosts in Shenzhen had a magnificent home and 14 cars and owned the skyscraper his offices were in but said that after he visited Australia and the USA, he felt constrained when coming back home, all the petty restrictions and red tape got him down. He longed for a place in China like the University of California Berkeley where he gave a talk and experienced feedback and interaction with students. That is entirely absent in China.
Regarding our gas devices, our main competitor was another Chinese manufacturer, so we had to achieve some way of producing these at a competitive price. The factory I visited did not have children at the soldering stations, it was mostly automated and just had technicians walking about checking and maintaining the equipment. Sure there are computer board plants where young teenagers solder components on the board, but this operation is too slow and unreliable. One plant I went to was making LED lamps like this, people physically touching a hot iron to surface mount components. But the failure rate is over 20% due to the haste the management run the line at, so their market share is dwindling.