[ddxxdd]

A confident nation, like a confident individual, has nothing to prove to anyone else.

Just imagine a scenario where Chinese GDP doubles over 5 years, while greenhouse gas emissions drop to zero over that same period. Imagine China's glee and their cackling laughter as Westerners scratch their heads wondering why.

For the record, I am an American who reads about plasma physics in my free time, under the distant hope that I can help America win this race.

[garmaine]

On the other hand, the world is hitting China with a lot of moralistic judgement and economic tariffs. This would give them the ability to say: “We gave you clean fusion. STFU.”

Not to mention the geopolitical advantage they would get deploying fusion plants to Africa, etc.

[Godel_unicode]

That's really only the case if you don't ever want anything from other people/nations. If you're going to be negotiating anything ever again, it might be useful to have chips like this to play.