It’s commonly argued that the escalating tech competition with the United States is like a “Sputnik moment” for China’s government. The allusion is to the United States’ fear after the launch of Sputnik in 1957 that it was falling behind its rival, driving Washington to pour funding into science and technology. China certainly faced a Sputnik-scale shock after the U.S. banned sales of chips to firms like Huawei.
