By most economists accounts, Americas sanctions hurt America's economy more than it helped it. The sanctions may have helped certain industries and areas of America by kneecapping Chinese high-tech, but it takes more than that for Republicans to start a round of sanctions and the Democrats to continue them.
There is a very blatant military interest in keeping China behind in terms of technology. People have had a very clear picture of what technology can do for a military in a conventional war since the Gulf War where the Iraqi Republican Guard, the 4th largest military in the world, was obliterated from a distance by high-tech computerised weaponry and military systems and totally demoralised.
There can be multiple motives. If both high-tech and the military want something, that makes it that much more of a political winner.
This is why I'm of a mind that decoupling/sanctions are really not the way to go. I'd say open source/open academic development benefitted both US/China more than decoupling benefits either. Yes, I know there was a lot of drum banging re "stealing tech" and "authoritarian values coming into the US" but I get the feeling that there was way more flow of western liberal and pro-democratic values into China than the other way around...
It's never been about helping America's overall economy; only about helping the biggest corporations which have immense control over beaurocrats and politicians.
There is a very blatant military interest in keeping China behind in terms of technology. People have had a very clear picture of what technology can do for a military in a conventional war since the Gulf War where the Iraqi Republican Guard, the 4th largest military in the world, was obliterated from a distance by high-tech computerised weaponry and military systems and totally demoralised.
There can be multiple motives. If both high-tech and the military want something, that makes it that much more of a political winner.