[Teever]

> We should have known that if we limited China from accessing our tech, they'd just grow their own.

It was known and was accounted for.

The idea is to make them spend resources developing their own technology on our terms instead of their own.

They were always going to do this, they just had to do it faster than they otherwise wanted to, which has an opportunity cost.

[echelon]

> opportunity cost

What was the opportunity cost in this equation? A substantially smaller bailout for their commercial real estate market?

> [The idea is to make them spend resources developing their own technology] on our terms (emphasis added)

What terms did we dictate? Timelines? Trade?

How does America or the West emerge ahead here?

[Qem]

> They were always going to do this, they just had to do it faster than they otherwise wanted to, which has an opportunity cost.

It will pay itself and offset those costs once they reach breakeven and start selling their equal or better tech in the international market, displacing the incumbents.

[Teever]

If that was the case then they would have done this work without impetus from external policy.

[zamadatix]

Not necessarily. That would imply competing with the multinational incumbents during the first trillion dollars of investment is just as easy and profitable as having the market cleared out for you because the US placed tech export bans, caps, or pricing pressures to parts of the world market (not just China alone).

Of course this doesn't automatically mean China wouldn't eventually pull ahead without the external pressure either. I'm just not as convinced it was so clearly a forced opportunity cost loss as much as something which provided a washed mix of both friction and acceleration despite assuredly preventing the US from making more money while its tech was farther ahead.