They did jump to a conspiracy theory: there’s no evidence that Google’s stated reason is hiding an ulterior motive, and as a way to hinder China it’d have very little impact since Chinese companies aren’t dependent on it.
This is not the place to relitigate the lab leak mess but I will note that the conspiracy theorists were continually in a state of wrongness. They contributed nothing but noise because they were starting with the conclusion and confabulating as needed to support it. You can and should expect people to back claims up with logic and evidence.
Not all, it just doesn’t work as a conspiracy theory.
China is currently using x86, ARM, MIPS (Loong arch) at scale. If RISC-V makes sense for them, they can use it with Linux now. Now, think about what happens if the hypothetical men in black manage to keep Google from supporting it. China has an enormous tech sector, so if it’s economically viable to use RISC-V for phones or tablets they can pay a couple of developers to support RISC-V in an Android fork, which is going to be popular if RISC-V is working for anyone else in the world, and their domestic market alone is large enough to support it. If that doesn’t make sense, they’ll continue using the same ARM devices they’re currently using because the men in black can’t tell anyone to stop using that platform.
Given how many US companies are looking into RISC-V, it’s also hard to see a ban being sustainable. If RISC-V starts to become competitive, American companies are not going to tolerate being shut out. If it doesn’t, being shut out won’t harm China.
You calling them "men in black" doesn't make this more of a conspiracy, it just makes you look silly. Call them "US Senators"[1] or "US lawmakers"[2]. It's a lot more descriptive, though admittedly it does make your assertion that this is a "conspiracy theory" sound pretty weak...
Also, you saying that China could reimplement RISC-V support in Android is a completely different discussion. That's a discussion about how effective the US government actions would be, not whether they were doing anything (which you want to call a conspiracy theory despite there being plenty of evidence that this is happening). You might find this article[3] and this discussion of it [4] interesting, or you might just think the entire thread is full of conspiracy theorists.
At a certain point though, the person calling people "conspiracy theorists" actually becomes the conspiracy theorist. It's not about rhetorical tricks like saying "men in black", it's about evidence.
> You calling them "men in black" doesn't make this more of a conspiracy, it just makes you look silly. Call them "US Senators"[1] or "US lawmakers"[2].
If you read those links, notice how this is all happening officially in public? That’s why I referred to the conspiracy theory as such because we are left to believe that there’s some well-concealed shadow operation duplicating those efforts despite it being a poor return on their investment.
Similarly, reading your latter two links would help you understand why it wouldn’t be effective. Andrew makes the case well that even the official measures being discussed would not impede China, and the conspiracy theory would be even weaker.
This is not the place to relitigate the lab leak mess but I will note that the conspiracy theorists were continually in a state of wrongness. They contributed nothing but noise because they were starting with the conclusion and confabulating as needed to support it. You can and should expect people to back claims up with logic and evidence.