There is no "we" in any of SpaceX's achievements. The SpaceX engineers get all the credit. You and the 18-20 million Americans STILL receiving unemployment benefits (now over a year into the pandemic) have never innovated ANYTHING from your trailer park.
What is there to follow?
Starship SN8: exploded on landing.
Starship SN9: exploded on landing.
Starship SN10: hard landing, exploded eight minutes after landing.
Starship SN11: explodes in mid-air, debris falls from the sky.
Starship SN15: will launch maybe tomorrow.
Four Tries, four Failures. Shouldn't China at least wait for a successful landing before they start copying?
Here's a hypothetical. When the dust finally settles in 10 years, and China ends up with a fully commercialized Starship (along with possibly TSTO and SSTO spaceplanes), and SpaceX continues to struggle with a spotty launch record, would China still be copying? Or would China be ahead?