no need to speculate, China is not at the same level today (or we wouldn't even be having this discussion in the first place), no matter how populous. Would it help catch-up? Probably! You are the one bringing this up, not me, so…

You just fucking said it required cooperation you dumb cum juggler, now you’re saying they failed despite not cooperating?

Was this a difficult sentence to read? Should I break it down for you? Those two things can be true at the same time (which is essentially what I wrote):

ASML (NL) EUV machines being the culmination of international cooperation (with US/TW/DE/…)
Japanese having an expansive indigenous lithography industry and history

Today's China has neither.

You won’t shut up about how hard and difficult and borderline impossible it is and you want me to believe you’re not trying to say they won’t be able to? You’re certainly not arguing that they will.

Well, I'm sorry that a well-sourced post with actual engineering and historical facts, meant for the legitimately curious and interested people here makes you so angry. What can I say other than "you probably didn't check-out the links and are arguing in bad faith/for the sake of it" and "you are letting your emotions blur your comprehension, i.e. putting words in my mouth".

That’s not what commercially viable mean, buddy.

Commercial viability is the likelihood that a product or service will be successful in the marketplace.

Unless the CCP starts distributing indigenous chips asking nothing in exchange, which I find unlikely to say the least, those will be traded (against hard money, work, resources, …) on some form of market. I'm not really into arguing about semantics, so you do you.