In the meantime, its supply chain leadership had become largely mythical, and HP started to overmatch it in efficiency of buying and assembling components.

FORBES: Why PC Market Leaders Rise And Fall

And certain tasks, such as assembling components, remain too fiddly for robots to do well, which is why assembly is often subcontracted to low-wage countries.

ECONOMIST: Automation

Most succeeded by either dominating the local market (most of the richest people in China now lead domestically-focused consumer goods, real estate or Internet companies), or assembling PCs, phones, components, tablets, printers or other gadgets designed by overseas firms.

FORBES: The China Paradox

Realising their designs would involve assembling and connecting hundreds or thousands of components by hand, using unreliable solder, and then connecting these dinky little constructions to tens of thousands of light bulbs.

ECONOMIST: Jack Kilby

But Chinese factories have little trouble assembling digital cameras: all they need to do is to obtain advanced components from Japan that are pre-designed to work in harmony when snapped together.

ECONOMIST: Manufacturing in Japan