The irony behind all of this is that to the neoliberal mindset China's extraordinary willingness to invest in pure research is some sort of Communist plot. Literally, discussions just a few weeks ago about China taking the lead on R&D spending in 2019 [1] and having that lead become "indefinite" by 2025, break down (not unlike this thread) into mindless accusations against Big Government. Of course the Chinese will tell you China is just doing exactly what the West did post-War when huge government investments in science and technology provided transformative wealth that gave Westerners the best quality-of-life in the world.

The real story here is that while China's strategy is risky -- there's no guarantee all this investment will pay off -- you could argue the neoliberal strategy is even riskier. Technology tends to be a winner take all affair and it's very often the first to market that wins.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00536-1