The profits gained from sales of .io domains has come under increasing scrutiny given that the UK’s control over the archipelago itself is under threat.
Chagossian refugee groups (former inhabitants forcibly removed in the 1960s and 1970s) petitioning the UK government for the right of return have recently extended their grievances to the return of the .io domain as well (Chagos Refugees Group United Kingdom et al. vs. Internet Computer Bureau Limited Citation 2021).
Additionally, Mauritius is also attempting to gain control over .io by petitioning IANA for redelegation (Bowcott Citation 2022).
However, while these groups fight for control over the .io domain, a recent UN ruling challenging British sovereignty over the island threatens the existence of the ccTLD itself.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23738871.2023.2238723

While I agree with you in that ICANN will probably save .io through some policy change it isn’t as easy as just saying “screw all our policies, this ccTLD is now a gTLD.” considering the fighting going on regarding it.

2.12 Can a New gTLD name be 2 letters?

Applied-for gTLD strings in ASCII must be composed of three or more visually distinct characters. Two-character ASCII strings are not permitted, to avoid conflicting with current and future country-codes based on the ISO 3166-1 standard.

• https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en

Either way a policy change is needed.

The first thing to check is whether you can install your CAD software on a virtual machine with your current license. If you have good internet at home and already own a CAD machine then it might be easier to setup VPN access and remote control that machine for your Windows needs. Sunshine/Moonlight works good if you have the bandwidth for it.

For China’s government, more than company profits is at stake. Standards can encode social values deep within a technology. Many features of the Western-designed internet, for example, have tended to promote individual privacy over centralised control, thereby irking China’s authoritarian government.
In recent years it has thus been campaigning to rewrite the standards that underpin the internet. In 2019 and 2022 Huawei proposed alternative internet protocols at the ITU that would have enabled a far greater level of government control. Neither was successful, but they did receive support from member states such as Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

I very much prefer the individual privacy policies over centralised control though.