Pretty much. It's similar in spirit to reactive programming if you think of a component as exposing a Signal<Virtual DOM> that the renderer subscribes to. Also, the Signal<Virtual DOM> depends on a Signal<Props> and a Signal<State>. And the Signal<Props>, in turn, depends on the component owner's Signal<Virtual DOM>.

You also have control over whether the render() method is called by substituting your own diff function (shouldComponentUpdate).