OK but seriously, "China does something potentially good, but at what cost" is a meme at this point.

The cost seems pretty obvious TBH...they're subsidising their car industry to a much higher degree than European and American countries in order to achieve a greater market share and by extension control of large foreign car consumer markets. Given enough time, they will capture significant market shares in these markets due to artificially low prices outside of regular market competition.

There's of course also the general increased security risk of the Chinese government being plugged in to all the companies making these cars with black box software and always connected to the internet.

So, basically what every VC-backed capitalist is doing. But we don't see these constant articles of "But at what cost" for every VC-backed venture

Not quiet, the difference is in how excessive it is with Chinese industry compared to VC backed capitalist counterparts.

VC-backed OpenAI is the most valuable company in the world and is engaging in massive environmental destruction. The US state just went into cahoots with them to the tune of billions

VC-backed Uber and AirBnb disrupted multiple estabilished industries for the worst by undercutting them through loss-leading.

VC-backed Facebook killed or purchased all its rivals and consolidated almost all social media to the detriment of the whole world.