China’s pace of innovation is easy to observe from a distance: new products, fast-moving platforms and infrastructure at remarkable scale. The harder thing to see is the operating system that makes that pace possible.

Dense ecosystems put engineers, suppliers, users and capital close together. This shortens the feedback loop between an idea, a prototype and a market response.

For Western leaders, the lesson is not to imitate China’s model. It is to look more carefully at the conditions that allow experimentation to become execution.