The 'world-shaking silicon surprises' would be if SMIC can hit 5nm at some point with or without EUV (since they are not able to buy ASML's machines).
However by all analysis, the chip is a derivative of TSMC technology. If TSMC and SMIC are not collaborating, then Occam's Razor leads us to the tech/process being stolen.
This fact should fucking terrify all Americans, and indeed the west at large.
Clearly superior.
Intel barely has Intel 4 (7nm) stumbling out the door on a wheelchair with square wheels if Meteor Lake has been anything to go by, their foundry business is bleeding out red ink, and they're even dependent on TSMC now: They aren't self sufficient anymore.
You tell me which is superior, because if you ask me it's not the blue guy whose name starts with I, and by extension it's not the guy in red/white/blue whose name starts with U.
And in China, frankly, we have so much needs internally, it's more to power our own crap than to send weapons, or overpower foreign markets. We barely speak English and the americans don't take much Yuans, so their stuff is expensive :(
Be less terrified, and maybe contribute more than just patent rents? It's ok to compete, we're not gonna be at war. Or if we are, we are so corrupt that we put water in the fuel tanks of our missiles: you have nothing to fear.
I for one overall enjoy(ed?) the Pax Americana state of affairs, but Pax Americana exists on the premise of absolute economical and technological superiority against would-be challengers.
We are well on our way to lose our economical superiority this century, and we already lost our technological superiority; our military superiority will also vanish once we lose both of the aforementioned, too.
Pax Sino will be nowhere as comfortable or prosperous an era (for westerners!) to live in. That is why this is terrifying.
Pax-Americana existed because of two qualities that America has, but China does not.
1) America has a very unique interest in the foreign affairs of others. So much so that America is "hated" for it, and America has built a global navy to enforce its interests. China, both historically and currently, is hands off to the affairs of others if they do not represent a direct Chinese interest.
2) Foreign entities joined in on Pax-Americanan economic system (capitalism) because it made them rich as well, just not as rich as America. China themselves joined in and benefited. However, there is no part of the Chinese economic system that is interested in making others rich. They take an opposing approach, they give others the tools to keep power (through surveillance). (America gives countries the power to keep power as well through military sales, but the major factor is economic, not military).
China has a population the size of the US and EU combined, and are every bit as capable intellectually. One would expect them to catch up technologically, all else being equal. I don't think that requires any false presumptions.
Also, ime, the west has only ever presumed political superiority, not intellectual. Not unless you're talking about fringe people, in which case I'd point out that every nation has a minority of rabid ethnocentrists, and the west generally denounces theirs to a greater degree than China itself does.
Your original post took umbrage with the "downplaying" of the the intellectual/creative capacity of China compared to the West. You also implied that that has led to the current state of affairs. No one said that China was less than the West. It is however fact China has benefited from the stealing of secrets from the West (nuclear technology, stealth tech from the F-117, stealth tech from Boeing, and in this case, chip designs from TSMC). This is not a trope, it is fact.
> Initial images suggest it is a close copy of TSMC 7nm process technology. -TechInsights Product Brief
It would have been legally impressive if Intel similarly closely copied TSMC’s 7nm process without getting sued. And copying within six years isn’t technically impressive.