Information asymmetry on technology is why the Soviet Union never developed competitive consumer products. At some point you need to advertise what you have. Huawei alone isn't enough, all other manufacturers should know what chips are available domestically.
You seem to be making a bunch of straw man arguments which I never suggested.
I never stated that "Huawei alone is enough" in the overall semiconductor industry.
Furthermore, I never suggested that either Huawei or SMIC or other elements of China's semiconductor industry should seek for "total information blackout".
I also never suggested that they should never advertise their products.
I said that they should seek to be sufficiently quiet about their developments to achieve
maximal practical information asymmetry.
The relative surprise unveiling of the Mate 60 and the Kirin 9000S is an excellent example of that.
Imagine if Huawei and SMIC had been more transparent compared to other companies and if they had actually chosen to announce the development and pursuits of a domestically produced process months or even years ahead of its actual release.
The reason why the Soviet Union never developed competitive consumer products is wide ranging, not least due to the structure and incentives for private enterprise, consumption and competition.
It wasn't due to a desire for secrecy in specific nationally important and geopolitically relevant sectors.
For China's semiconductor industry, it absolutely makes sense to withhold and keep quiet about certain geopolitically relevant and sensitive products, technologies and capabilities until they are ready to disclose them in a manner that minimizes blowback or risk and maximizes commercial or geopolitical advantage.
As soon as a fully domestic supply chain is established, China should advertise it's products and export them to the free world. Like giving Maduro a new phone.
Obviously once domestic products are available and reach a given stage of maturity, they should be openly traded and exported both domestically and abroad.
However, that does not mean disclosing developmental efforts and pathways when the products are not yet mature and when the domestic industry overall is yet to be technologically at parity..
From October last year to today they've been stockpiling western equipment, so it made sense to be secretive. But now, what's the point? They're going to try to ban as much as possible anyway. Or is the goal to try to import DUV for as long as possible, before that's restricted as well?
Yes, the US will probably try to ban as much as possible.
That doesn't mean it is in Huawei, or SMIC, or China's overall semiconductor industry's interests to provide more information to the general public than needed.
Openly disclosing the complexity of the chips they can make, or providing information as to the directions in which their chip development is going, and developmental pathways, is commercially and geopolitically stupid. Developmental efforts should be only conveyed to relevant subsuppliers domestically and industries in the domestic field when necessary, and once development is finished and production is well underway, those efforts can be conveyed to the public once ready for being put on the market and/or export.
That isn't only due to concerns of the US trying to put in other sanctions or countermeasures (there is much more that the US can implement in theory outside of merely banning all western equipment/subsystems/materials to Huawei or SMIC, and announcing new developments may also cause the US to redouble their own domestic advancements) -- but also to catch commercial competitors offguard and minimize their reaction time in being able to put out competing products or develop more effective competing strategies.
Overall the intent is to delay both the geopolitical/geoeconomic and commercial competitor responses to their semiconductor progress, for as long as possible.
Being more open and "confident" about their developmental efforts only really makes sense once the domestic Chinese semiconductor industry is more advanced either at near parity, parity or superiority compared to other global champions. And it may also require China to be more geopolitically and geo-economically dominant as prerequisites as well.
Putting it another way, it only really makes sense for the Chinese semiconductor industry to be more "open" and "transparent" about their developments once they have a massive technological and market lead in the sector in a manner which is relatively unassailable and where they are not at much risk of geopolitical and geoeconomic blackmail (whether it be in terms of economic policy, technological blockade, market access, or otherwise).
Think about China's EV battery industry or solar and wind power industry -- they can be relatively "open" and "transparent" about developments in those industries because the above criteria are fulfilled due to China being so far ahead in technology and market share, and because those domains are not targets of intense geopolitical strife.
