I'm guessing with backstabbing he means China's practice of stealing technology and closing off the market for foreign companies.
Lots of smaller and mid sized companies that tried to invest in the Chinese market lost everything because the government protected and supported local copycats, with no intention of giving the foreign company fair access to the market.
He literally said it for China: stopping an invasion. I would add limiting political influence from autocratic governments that don't respect individual rights, but I know that's opening another Pandora's box.
Of course it requires SOTA, people will always choose better models over some compact thing that is obviously more limited. You can't control the truth with models nobody wants to use.
His analogy is that a gas station is for putting gas into your car. But he walks there often, so the assumption that you need your car if you go to the gas station isn't inevitable.
You could conceivably walk to a car wash that has similar sundries as a gas station.
Did they consider that profits on the build out won't be uniform, i. e. there will be some companies that go under but the rest of them will capture the profit?
Maybe, but you have very similar dynamics in China or other countries. At the root the problem is one of power dynamics, inequality, authoritarianism (whether legitimized by money or politics or both). Or said otherwise, an erosion of democratic and egalitarian ideals.
Engineering and running a company are very different skill sets. Engineers are often not good at Marketing, networking, sales, ...
Even if you are good at those, for many companies, it's more about connections than about the ability to build stuff. So if you don't know the right people, it is very difficult to get a foothold.
It's a dumb joke considering Germany has been one of the most peaceful countries in decades. And the people making the jokes are often citizens of a country actively engaged in wars.
Personally, I prefer the US approach. At least then everyone knows what they're dealing with and they can openly react instead of being forced into a fake dance between what is said and what is REALLY said.
The covert stuff gives some degree of plausible deniability and it causes a good amount of the population to be complacent and ignore reality. I don't see how this can be considered good for anyone but the people creating propaganda.
I have no idea and for me it's not the central question.
I don't like it from any party, but from a moral standpoint, the more authoritarian someone is about their propaganda, the more invasive and violent it feels to me.
I perceive what the CCP is doing as denying my (and other people's) humanity and individual rights. I simply cannot accept a government that imprisons artists and human rights activists. A world where art is crime is not one I find worth living in.
I perceive American propaganda in the same category as advertising, harmful and annoying, but they won't lock me up or threaten my safety if I speak up against the propaganda. Well, at least that's how it used to be, who knows with the current trajectory.
They're doing a lot that goes against that strategy, you just don't see it in the headlines except in cases such as these or when you dig into how they conduct international negotiations or business deals involving the Chinese market.
Not to mention how they are openly expansionist in the SCS and obviously wrt Taiwan.
Of course they want to be seen as reasonable, their ideal is to control the international narrative just how they can do it internally in China.
What examples do you have of the US government doing to CEOs what has happened to people like Jack Ma and many other public figures?
For China, there are so many examples of people doing 180s and being full of contrition after those interventions, it's hard to imagine anything but severe intimidation or worse happening behind closed doors.
Go to Russia and ask the average person on the street what they think of Putin. Thing is, the people who had to be afraid are already long gone. The rest just didn't care or tried to stay safe rather than prioritizing their beliefs and principles.
You really think the people who are left on the streets feel free to speak their minds if it would conflict with what the Politburo is enforcing?
Lots of smaller and mid sized companies that tried to invest in the Chinese market lost everything because the government protected and supported local copycats, with no intention of giving the foreign company fair access to the market.