The best thing for China is that this is happening at a time where the US is insistent that the brightest Chinese minds in the US go back to China, and the ones in China, stay there.

It's genius. Genius, I tell ya. But the current administration doesn't care, because the negative impacts will only be felt a decade from now.

The same thing happened when China wanted to join the ISS[1] - the US Congress blocked this to avoid "tech transfer". Instead of being dejected and sad, China kickstarted its space station program, and are now collaborating with Europe.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_International_...

Europe could have stepped up and become competitive long before, but they are too complacent with the status quo. It's good that finally someone steps up.

I wonder if most of what we are doing is being done for political purposes? Sort of, just to look good and get more votes. And if so, you kind of have to admit that from that perspective, the calculation works out even if China surges ahead even faster.

(In fact, you might even be able to use that surge, to do more grandstanding, to get more votes.)

Not saying this is 100% what's going on, but it's undoubtedly a factor in the equation here.

And in the end competition is good for normal people, so great job?

For sure. Third party countries may also decide less risk in buying from China (ie, China less likely to cut them off because of real or perceived issues).