You missed the point. That was a close-to-home example but just one of many that, together with China's new and vague anti-espionage laws, basically shuts the door on new investment.

And any statistics or analysis that one can see bear that out.

That sounds like a distinct advantage to the side with access to both, no?

I hold such optimism to be utterly unsupported by current reality and I am sure of no such thing. Consider the inability of state government to bail out the domestic housing industry which is so critical to consumer confidence. In just the last domino to drop here, Evergrande was forced into liquidation last week after years of defaults and deflections. While that action will take more years to play out, it will further tank both Chinese and Hong Kong stock markets and erode any interest of investment in all sectors. While the military may compensate for that marketplace, its own track record is also less-than-stellar on large projects such as aircraft carriers.

(Apologies if it's behind a paywall but this article, less than a week old, is informative reading:
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/02/01/chinas-leaders-are-flailing-as-markets-drop

if not that, many alternative analyses exist, none of them bullish except for state-supported media)

As I've said before, China will continue to dominate in low-end IoT and embedded systems -- where Microsoft support is irrelevant -- and RISC-V will no doubt bolster that position.

But the high end? Nope.

Will SMIC improve?  Sure, but so will TSMC and Intel etc; that gap will not narrow.

I'm happy to make a friendly bet on whether China can indeed "make it happen" at the highest end unless sanctions drop.

- Evan