It seems like they fully expected China and India to fall in line fearing secondary sanctions, and yeah once that didn't happen it was gg well played. Also, completely agree that anybody with a functioning brain could've predicted this outcome.

I suspect that what we're seeing is the effect of creating really good propaganda and echo chambers. The people in charge in the west started drinking their own kool aid at some point.

Incidentally, China's already leading in LLMs :) https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/china-leads-world-adoption-generative-ai-survey-shows-2024-07-09/