This is not really what happened. American policy makers weren't being lenient because they didn't how to kill Huawei, but because they wanted to keep the damag

This is not really what happened. American policy makers weren't being lenient because they didn't how to kill Huawei, but because they wanted to keep the damages below the level that they believe would induce Chinese retaliations. Killing Huawei would have generated enormous collateral damages, when many of their allies depended on Huawei. Additionally US depends on China too. In an economic MAD world it is not at all clear people would care about 5G or 7nm chips.