> however I think that the Chinese government is totally capable of acting in a centralized way on a fixed target like mining
Spend a couple weeks in China's hinterland and I'm sure that your opinion would change very quickly. There are good reasons semiconductors are concentrated in Beijing/Shanghai, but anything mining or natural resource related are going to be messy because China is a huge country and local government interests are often at odds with central government interests.
Yea people literally treat China as a hivemind. The same goes for other countries too. It's absolutely bizarre and often some sort of weird US centric mindset.
Part of it I even blame on US media, somehow, whenever there's something to discuss about in another country, even if it's some research breakthrough by a single individual presenting his work at a elementary school instead its "COUNTRY X CURES CANCER"
Are you saying the US is more centrally controlled than China? It seems that way but I don’t think that holds up.
The US states convened and created a constitution which granted a few explicit powers to the federal government and left everything else to the states. These rules cannot be changed by the federal government- only the states.
Whereas in China, a single party wrote the constitution, which enshrines power in themselves, and can be changed by this party whenever they want.
Spend a couple weeks in China's hinterland and I'm sure that your opinion would change very quickly. There are good reasons semiconductors are concentrated in Beijing/Shanghai, but anything mining or natural resource related are going to be messy because China is a huge country and local government interests are often at odds with central government interests.