Isn't that equivalent to starting up with VC money (and stocks, later)? You get billions to start up, and if you fail you don't have to pay anything back. It's the business model of Amazon, Uber, Tesla, Airbnb...
All of your examples are companies that were pioneers in immature markets. And then if you succeed, the VCs own your company. It's not charity.
Whereas China will give a Chinese company billions of dollars to unseat an incumbent in a mature industry and expect nothing in return except for that industry to be in China.
Fair, but the implication seemed to be that China was somehow not expecting ownership over the corporations in which it invests (since there was an implied contrast with VC investment where said ownership is expected).
That is: it goes a fair bit beyond merely keeping companies in a given geography.
