They were, just not as quickly. The export controls directly accelerated their development.

The general rule is: USA bans China from having thing, they make their own version of whatever that thing is. USA bans China from the ISS, they make their own space station. USA bans China from having ASML, they make a Manhattan project to clone it, the "20 years behind the west" line is history. They ban GPU exports, they just start making their own GPUs.

I gotta respect the chinese. I wish my own country had the balls to do this.