Many companies sent their blueprints to China and asked them to find a cheaper way to build it, and so they did. The exclusivity guarantees must have been lost in translation.

Many ? Like who ? A secret stolen that way with company permission to stole and not just to a temporary permission to use the blueprint IMHO never happened and if happened has been a micro tiny fraction of stolen secrets ie by acquisitions, price dumping , expats coming back after having worked years in key jobs and then going in china to do a job where they can use what they learned without the restrictions of westerns laws

I didn't mean clandestinely, I meant that western companies choose to have their product produced in China, and are surprised when the product is sold without their label attached to it. I guess it is the media pirate in me quibbling over the definition of "stole", yes, as far as intellectual property goes, the Chinese have 'stolen' the goods, but I can only speculate that the vast majority of the time they did not have to sneak into an office in the middle of the night, instead the IP was handed to them with a "please don't make copies outside of this commission, or I'll tell the US government you stole." Without enforcement, there's no such thing as private property. Western companies should have kept their secrets secret.

That's true. And things will shift somewhat in that China will be less dependent on other countries for silicon for their economic and military security (most of which don't require cutting edge process). It's not going to happen by spending "millions" though, that will happen by continuing to aggressively follow.