Inside China's Copycat Apple Stores

China has positioned itself as possibly the biggest disrupter in the global technology market, but just how innovative are Chinese companies and entrepreneurs?

Consider the case made by MIT Sloan School of Management Chinese Economy professor Yasheng Huang, who showed photographs of an Apple store in Kunming, Yunnan province, China, at a recent MIT event.

’The problem is Apple has never opened a store in Kunming in China. There are actually three fake Apple stores nearby, and there’s even a fake Goldman Sachs in Shenzen,’ Huang said.

Replication strategy is prevalent in China, he said, with faux Apple stores popping up with employees donning the same bright blue T-shirts, walking under awnings with identical Apple logos.

But when it comes to empowering entrepreneurs to build a company with innovative capabilities, it becomes a much more complicated challenge for China.

Huang said innovative entrepreneurs and businesses ’require more from the institutions because the goal is not given. You need searches, you need trials, you need errors. You need freedom of ideas, you need rule of law, you need a higher level of trust, you need risk capital, you need an enabling government, but also a restrained government. China doesn’t have those.’