If you like Angular's style you can use react-templates [1], most people just prefer the React way. In theory there shouldn't be any overhead, but since in JavaScript abstractions aren't free you're going to pay some price.
Also the angular equivalent would be
<ul><li ng-repeat="item in items">{{item}}</li></ul>
And the react-templates equivalent would be
<ul><li rt-repeat="item in this.state.items">{item}</li></ul>
Also the angular equivalent would be
And the react-templates equivalent would be [1] http://wix.github.io/react-templates/