I contend that it's foolish to expect countries to not act in their own best interest. When you cut them off of technology because you're scared that they can reproduce it, you shouldn't be surprised that they actively go around your restrictions. It's the only sane move, the move that our own country took in their situation, and one aspect that led to our own economic greatness.
> I contend that it's foolish to expect countries to not act in their own best interest.
On one level absolutely yes, however best interest can sometimes mean co-operating and taking it in the shorts here for a win over there - this is largely how western countries have traded amongst each other.
The Chinese government is much less willing to play the co-operate and we all benefit game which results in other governments having to adjust to that.
It's somewhat similar to what Russia did with their technology industry over the last 10-15 years.
Can be defended as rational from the Chinese viewpoint since they I think are planning over the long term (decades) to forge enough relationships outside of the west to be completely self-sufficient (that has been their goal for a long time in terms of technology IP, they don't just want to be the factory, they want to be the design bureau)
It does seem like the world is polarising around new nexuses of power, the traditional west with the US on one side, China and it's allies (some would say debtors) on the other and the EU somewhere in the middle but much closer to the US than China.
Where it gets interesting is historically those power blocs have formed where the world was much less interconnected than now and so I think that'll change things in ways we can't expect.
COVID has been an interesting lesson in disruption on a global scale (even if compared to how bad it could have been and it was truly awful - it was comparitively minor) and how fast things fall apart, throw in climate change and we are headed for interesting times.
