The article suggests they just openly bought materials to produce this stuff lol.

Though it would be cool if they did "steal" it, IP is bullshit and particularly when used to forward unequal trade relationships internationally, depressing wages and creating US-centric systems of control. Using common ideas to create cool new stuff and circumvent US sanctions would be a good thing.

In case the things I'm saying seem alien, international IP rules were set up to favor colonizer nations at the expense of colonized nations, as there is an advantage to maintaining monopoly control over technology when the relationship you want with other countries is purely to extract their labor and natural resources. It is a means by which to prevent the redevelopment of countries ripped apart by colonial activity, as this would threaten domestic profits.

It is also a race against the other impact of protectionist policies, however: preventing that tech export to China is actually going to subsidize China creating its own tech, as they'll only be able to attain it through domestic production. This is how imperialist powers developed their own industries: the British Empire, for example, forced India to destroy its own fine textiles industry, export cotton, and import British-made textiles. Export and running of textile tech to India was explicitly banned alongside flooding the market with British factory-made textiles.

The US is using the only weapons it knows how to use - ones intended to limit others' ability to develop - but they will often backfire because China is not in as weak of a position as the countries the US usually bullies and/or tries to destroy.

Good article, but it doesn't support your thesis that the sanctions are about China hacking at all. The idea they've managed to achieve this through hacking to steal technology is completely non-existent in the article.