China has indeed faced long-term U.S. restrictions and sanctions spanning 20-25 years. Over these decades, China pursued two key strategies: first, building a fully independent domestic aerospace microelectronics/components ecosystem and supporting industries; second, securing advanced aerospace components through partnerships with European nations (primarily France, Germany, Italy, and the UK) and other countries (notably Israel and Japan), sustaining critical industrial development. However, under U.S. pressure, China’s access to European technological cooperation significantly diminished after 2015.
Paradoxically, this prolonged technological blockade spurred China to develop the world’s most advanced aerospace electronics and components industry outside the United States. Even the U.S. now relies on Chinese aerospace-grade components for certain legacy systems no longer domestically produced—a point indirectly referenced in a GAO report following the delayed 2021 SLS maiden flight, which cited issues with electronics sourced from "a country in East Asia."
Peer-reviewed literature indicates that China’s in-development aerospace microelectronics now rival or exceed cutting-edge U.S. counterparts in performance specifications and variety. By approximately 2019, China transitioned from imitation to genuine innovation in space-grade chip design. In fields like multi-core radiation-hardened SoCs, China’s R&D portfolio and scale potentially surpass U.S. efforts, enabling applications like on-orbit computing satellite constellations.
Western observers often overlook that China’s 1.4 billion population surpasses the combined population of the entire Western world plus Japan and South Korea. With decades of sustained investment in advanced technologies, China uniquely masters all industrial categories registered with the United Nations. In purchasing power parity terms, China’s R&D expenditure and technological consumption exceed the U.S. It possesses an engineering and research workforce unmatched in scale globally.
Frankly, these developments have never been particularly surprising to most Chinese observers—merely seldom articulated publicly.
While NASA’s budget stands at ~25billion,China’s8 billion space budget achieves comparable mission scale and technological outcomes when adjusted for purchasing power parity (estimated at 3× effectiveness). This fundamental context—that China accomplishes analogous aerospace feats at a fraction of the nominal cost—remains the core reality external assessments must grasp before evaluating China's technological capabilities.
