Granting China renewed access to advanced chips represents a catastrophic abdication of strategic responsibility. These processors don't merely power consumer applications — they're the computational backbone of military AI systems, surveillance networks, and hypersonic weapons programs. Washington's restrictions targeted limiting China's access to high-performance computing for military applications, yet this reversal hands Beijing the very tools to accelerate authoritarian control and military modernization.
These ham-fisted export curbs epitomize strategic myopia at its worst. By forcing China to develop indigenous alternatives, Washington effectively gifted Beijing the very technological independence it sought to prevent. Nvidia's market share plummeted, replaced entirely by Chinese innovation that export controls "turbocharged" into existence. The policy's fundamental folly lies in believing you can stifle progress through prohibition — instead of maintaining American technological hegemony, these controls merely accelerated China's march toward self-sufficiency while sacrificing billions in revenue.