This is actually an excellent example of what I’m talking about. The Kirin 990 might be great, but it’s actually manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan. China can design chips, but they currently can’t make them.
True, but that wasn't the point of my argument. The point is you can actually throw money at a problem and get it to work. There are 4 big ARM chip designers in the world right now - Qualcomm & Apple in the West and Samsung & Huawei in the East. Both Samsung and Huawei have reached this stage by being pumped with lot of cash and backing by their government in the past. So this model has proven that it works.