China is producing 7nm chips and working on 5nm. The lead has shrunk to be almost insignificant.

People on internet forums are obsessed over "bleeding edge" fabs, when the vast majority of semiconductor products are designed for a specific process and kept in production for at least a decade.

If beating Taiwan is your definition of "catching up", then you're basically making China's status as a legitimate semiconductor manufacturer contingent on the obsolescence of everyone else's status. That's not very fair and it's not even something to brag about. Once you lose the grin, it would be game over for you.

That's what we've been doing for a long time. But that's not possible with today's China anymore. They are as innovative as the rest, if not more so.