First (as in my other comment), the idea that C parsing depends on semantic analysis is wrong (and yes, I wrote C parsers). There are issues which may make implementing C parsers hard if you are not aware of them, but those issues hardly compare to the complexities of other languages, and can easily be dealt with if you know about then. Many people implemented C parsers.

The idea that C does not offer ways to build powerful abstractions is also wrong in my opinion. It basically allows the same abstractions as other languages, but it does not provide as much syntactic sugar. Whether this syntactic sugar really helps or whether it obscures semantics is up to debate. In my opinion (having programmed a lot more C++ in the past), it does not and C is better for building complex applications than C++. I build very complex applications in C myself and some of the most successful software projects were build using C. I find it easier to understand complex applications written in C than in other languages, and I also find it easier to refactor C code which is messed up compared to untangling the mess you can create with other languages. I admit that some people might find it helpful to have the syntactic sugar as help for building abstractions. In C you need to know how to build abstractions yourself based on training or experience.

I see a lot of negativity towards C in recent years, which go against clear evidence, e.g. "you can not build abstractions" or "all C programs segfault all the time" when in reality most of the programs I rely on on a daily basis and which in my experience never crash are written in C.