They sanctioned the hell out of Huawei and now Huawei is bigger than ever
America is just not able to digest the idea that another country can be as good, if not better, at innovation
China's fall in the 19th century came at them for the same reason. How could these European savages be stronger, thus better than us? Our intelligence service must be out of their mind.
Sovereign and non-sovereign nations have completely different decision matrices for dealing with external threats
It costs 100-1000x less manpower, money, and time to hug the heels of innovators than to actually pioneer. Say what you will about America but they absolutely lead technological innovation and it's not even remotely close.
China had literally 60M people die in a famine when JFK was president and Elvis was the biggest thing. The country was basically farmland and basic industries 40 years ago
Why would you even compare their capabilities today vs a country that has been a sovereign nation for 250 years?
You look at trajectories, not the present
The industrial revolution was intense and powerful, and kicked off in Britain, Europe, and the US. Throughout that revolution, there were countless mistakes, countless branches that had to be clipped as we found ways to increase power and efficiency.
50-100 years after that, every other country has a perfect blueprint to follow. That is far cheaper. Far more efficient. Far easier. And they get to leverage experts and contractors from the innovating regions as well.
This is the story for China, and Asia in general.
