I wonder if there's a strategy behind all of this on China's side. I know the CCP uses a direct hand in many affairs in China, but is there an actual coordinated effort to compete with, or sabotage the West?
Yes, absolutely.
China regularly produces long term planning documents to coordinate efforts, and the latest ones have specifically prioritized technology like chips and AI to compete with the west. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-parliament-approve...
I don't believe there's any publicly stated intent to sabotage the west... unsurprisingly.
This I assume will make it more difficult for US AI labs to turn a profit, which might make investors question their sky high valuations.
Any sort of melt down in the AI sector would almost certainly spread to the wider US market.
In contrast, in China, most of the funding for AI is coming directly from the government, so it's unlikely the same capital flight scenario would happen.
We're making this way too easy. The rationale and logic are reasonable, but ultimately irrelevant.
After all historically both statistics and research that comes out of China is not very trustworthy.