The good news is the main manufacturers of RISC-V are Chinese vendors that allow complete access to low level processor details. They generally don't lock down their products at all.
At this point, their government has completely undermined foreign confidence in their semiconductor industry. I would be careful to avoid any processors from there, because the chance that it contains a backdoor is just too great to risk. Even if that is only a perceived risk and not a real one. American propaganda in recent years clearly set out to reach this new status quo, and it’s probably all smoke and little to no fire. But it worked. There are enough examples of China screwing over foreign companies to prove the risk could be real no matter your size (e.g. ARM China).
I still cannot understand why the US and other countries with high tech allowed themselves to become so absolutely dependent on China.
When their own companies killed of local manufacturing and went to China out of greed and increased profits then governments should have stepped in on strategic grounds, so why didn't they?
It was obvious to me some 25 years ago and I've no monopoly on this insight so they must have been well aware that this would happen. In essence, these countries have been shooting themselves in the feet for decades.
The question is why.
Edit: I can remember the time when the US military required certain components, chips etc. to be able to be second-sourced from multiple manufacturers before they were incorporated into equipment. Does anyone else remember this?
Clearly governments, not only the US, have been aware of the problem for many decades and have chosen to do nothing about it. Moreover, what brought them to abandon this once good policy in the first instance?
