Except other thieves…
We know, you want to blame everybody.
That would relieve you from wasting time on your own prototype
That would depend on your outlook in the future as well.
They wouldn’t copy my work because I wouldn’t post it publicly prior to entering a competition or applying for a patent.
You postulate that this is about the West copying China, yet you didn’t take the necessary steps to safeguard your ideas and concept, it is your fault alone. So you tell me, what is worse, to openly share a concept with the world before securing IP rights and lose a meaningless competition, or to take all of the legal measures and PAY for patents and prototypes and only to have another person/company/country reverse engineer it and produce it at a lower cost robbing you of the revenue that you as the IP holder desrve?
Dude, we were trying to help you with understanding, not facts, so that you can become a better designer, do that, and the awards and money will come.