I agree - it's not good, but to be horribly cynical about it China (and it's local chip manufacturer lobby) is just optimizing: as long as they can squeeze Qualcomm without pushing them out entirely, it's effectively the same as granting a subsidy to the local market, except that Qualcomm pays for it and ultimately is happy to since even after the shakedown Qualcomm is making a lot of $$ in China. In fact, to me the most perverse thing is that after a $975M fine share prices are UP, which I at least partially read as: now Qualcomm is in the fold and will (at least for the short term) benefit from the stability of being part of the machinery.