Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were the first movers so they cornered the market with an inferior product. Now that China has no hope of capturing the market to extract rents the next best alternative is to make extracting rents impossible, destroying the business model of the US companies who rely on said rents. In terms of a trade war this has all the downsides of dumping products on the US firms with none of the downsides to the rest of th…
'Inferior product...rent seekers' - Yeah, that's why the Soviet Union started the silicon revolution, and why the Chinese currently lead the field, right? They open sourced their fabs, and random farmers on collectives would come home (while starving) and make improvements in fab technology by candlelight. If only they had you to guide them, with your advanced knowledge of economics, trade and process technology.
Unless you want to talk to me about the fabs in Portugal and Mexico in 1990 when compared to the ones in Bulgaria and the USSR you're making my point for me.