> There are a number of countries being run far better than the US or the EU

It will be funny if China is what convinces the US to be more open to free industry. Opposite day vs the 1970s

To be fair, these advances are not being made in China due to "free industry". They have something of a command economy for their critical sectors. So it's unfair not to point out that it's easy to make advances if a nation as a whole points to a hill and says, "take that hill". Of course you can do it under those circumstances.

If it's just your company or some trifling consortium trying to develop nuclear energy advances in a "free industry" environment, the guy who is just slapping up windmills, [T Boone Pickens RIP], is just gonna mop the floor with you. There's just no way to compete on moonshots like that.