Don't know if this is on topic or not, but just two quick observations recently since this whole Huawei story blew.
1. Some Western outlets, including BBC, still have not reported on the story. NYTimes wrote a minor story that got relegated to the side mentions.
2. Initially the response from many was cope that the phone was mediocre and behind the best Western tech has to offer. Now the response is skepticism that Huawei or SMIC actually made the chips and that they were likely TSMC or Samsung chips smuggled into China, essentially acknowledging that this was tech a company under as many sanctions as Huawei should not have had access to.
What does this say to me? For one with respect to excitement about this breakthrough, yes expectations should be kept in check since Huawei still has not caught up to TSMC and Samsung. When it comes to gloating at Western despair at this new development, I dare say even the most overtop reactions doesn't even capture a fraction of how humiliated the West feels at the moment.
This isn't even like Russia launching Sputnik, since that episode spurred the West to work harder to outcompete the Soviets. No, this time around the West's reaction to the release of a simple smartphone mirrors that of zombie movies where the military nukes a city, then finds out in horror once the fallout ends they didn't do shit and the zombies are still coming.
