The structural implication of Sacks's claim is the one no policy document will say plainly: U.S. export controls may have funded China's chip independence program more reliably than any Beijing budget allocation could. By signaling which capabilities were off-limits and forcing Chinese labs and manufacturers to treat domestic alternatives as a strategic necessity rather than a fallback, Washington provided exactly the industrial pressure that turns a second-tier semiconductor sector into a priority national project. Sacks cited news reports for his assertion , which means the intelligence basis remains unverified —…