There's also the fact they're seeing the West trying to steal their thunder in real-time; hard not to be paranoid when everyone IS out to get you. The chipmaki

There's also the fact they're seeing the West trying to steal their thunder in real-time; hard not to be paranoid when everyone IS out to get you. The chipmaking-gear sanctions are both about enforcing a dependency on an independent Taiwan via TSMC, and keeping the PRC from being more militarily and economically self-sufficient. The ZTE and Huawei bans were less about security and more about cutting off a place where they had effectively undercut the Western competition. There was no hoop they could have jumped through that would have convinced regulators their gear was safe-- the fix was in from day one. We're seeing the same thing with TikTok now. It's easy to see a message of "we like you when you're making our cereal box toys, but don't get near our high value premium economic development" in those actions.