One of my high school math teachers used to do fusion research, and eventually left the field because he got tired of it always being “20 years away”. The reason no one has managed to get a viable fusion reactor working so far is because we don’t fully understand all the physics and haven’t fully developed all the engineering needed to make a reactor work, and we probably won’t in the foreseeable future. Being able to sustain super hot plasma temperatures for 3 minutes is certainly progress, but it barely scratches the surface of the complex dynamics that still need to be mastered to let a reactor run in perpetuity without either putting out the fusion plasma or fragging the whole reactor chamber. We can barely sustain the temperatures needed to get fusion going right now. We have no practical idea how the plasma dynamics will actually change as the chemical composition of plasma changes from a sustained fusion process. Anyone who thinks China can get there alone just by trying harder and throwing more money at the problem is making light of the inherent difficulties with this technology. You can hit a lot of impressive and remarkable milestones in the physics and engineering involved in getting fusion to work and still not be anywhere close to getting a viable commercial reactor.
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