China, like the past, is another country. In the mobile industry, they do things differently there. That is becoming very clear as the market matures, and Chinese operators, vendors and web providers follow very different paths to those trodden in the west or in Korea or Japan. This is repeatedly wrongfooting western players, which had somehow expected China to follow roughly in their highly visible footprints as its industry developed. Instead, Chinese companies are leapfrogging their seniors in all directions – in IPR; in deployment of advanced networks and cloud platforms; in cheap yet functional chips and devices; and in innovative over-the-top and MVNO services. If China failed, until a couple of years ago, to fulfil the potential of its…