Innovation takes money. And lots of it. The US is strapped for cash, with a 35 trillion dollar deficit. There's none spare to outlay on innovation. OTOH, Chin

Innovation takes money. And lots of it. The US is strapped for cash, with a 35 trillion dollar deficit. There's none spare to outlay on innovation. OTOH, China is awash with cash. They can afford to throw huge amounts of cash at innovation, even if some of the R&D they've funded is a dead-end. Plenty cash left over for the successful R&D. The US has shot itself in the foot with this one. The Chinese were perfectly happy to spend billions each year to 'buy built' US semiconductors instead of having to lay out hundreds of billions for their own semiconductor industry. But now the Chinese are forced to 'roll their own', they will. And a few years down the track, those newly-built Chinese fabs will out-compete the Western fabs and destroy them. Historical Note: After WW2, the Japanese and German factories had all been destroyed by bombing. On rebuilding, those new factories were modern, efficient and could out-compete the British and American factories that were older and had not been destroyed during the war. Same thing applies today.