{"id":6304,"date":"2023-05-01T03:48:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=6304"},"modified":"2023-05-01T03:48:02","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T03:48:02","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-us-china-chip-wars-no-winners-in-zero-sum-battles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/the-guardian-view-on-us-china-chip-wars-no-winners-in-zero-sum-battles\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on US-China chip wars: no winners in zero-sum battles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rishi Sunak is readying a billion pounds<\/a> to subsidise the UK\u2019s fledgling microchip<\/a> industry. It sounds big. But the British government is merely reacting to US economic warfare against China. Behind the talk of \u201cfriendshoring\u201d<\/a> and resurgent industrial policy is a struggle to avoid collateral damage in the battle between China and the US for tech supremacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU plans almost to match the US promise of $52bn (\u00a342bn) in chip subsidies. India is spending $30bn (\u00a325bn) on its semiconductor mission. Mr Sunak looks to be bringing a peashooter to a gunfight. But Britain does not have a complete\u00a0end-to-end<\/a>\u00a0chip supply chain nor does it aspire to have one. Instead, it is following the slipstream of US power. Washington\u2019s strength is that almost all chip factories contain critical tools from US suppliers. The US has isolated Beijing with export control\u00a0powers that ban transactions<\/a>\u00a0between foreign countries and China. Washington\u2019s legislative arsenal was first deployed against China\u2019s\u00a0Huawei<\/a>, whose products Britain has also decided to\u00a0ban<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microchips are the lifeblood of an advanced economy. Covid saw shortages when working from home meant demand for computers shot up just as chip supply dried up. This was exacerbated when skirmishes between Beijing and Washington turned into a \u201czero\u2011sum<\/a>\u201d war on Chinese chipmakers. President Joe Biden sees China\u2019s rise as a threat to the US. Allies<\/a> have taken note. Mr Sunak\u2019s government last November blocked<\/a> the Chinese takeover of the UK\u2019s biggest chip plant on national security grounds. Washington\u2019s bans have seen Chinese chip imports plunge<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US says it does not want to block China\u2019s modernisation \u2013 except in every area the foreign policy establishment thinks it should. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said last year that the US would stymie China\u2019s attempts to attain \u201cfoundational technologies\u201d<\/a> such as artificial intelligence \u2013 by cutting off access to the high-speed processing power required. Some wryly note that this is \u201cTrumpism with a human face<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China isn\u2019t sitting still. Beijing is spending $220bn to become self-sufficient in microchips, with some success. Trade is a two-way street: Berlin<\/a> denied it would enforce a ban on key chemical exports after the news hit shares in its top companies. James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, last week suggested<\/a> that China\u2019s pride at its economic success might be shortlived. Britain clearly won\u2019t be far behind if the US bans the social media platform TikTok<\/a>, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. Evidently, the web will only be \u201copen\u201d as long as US companies \u2013 or those of Washington\u2019s allies \u2013 are superior enough to maintain market dominance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0last month that \u201cChina\u2019s economic growth need not be incompatible with US economic leadership\u201d. In short, Beijing ought to nurture strategic industries that don\u2019t\u00a0challenge<\/a>\u00a0the US\u2019s dominant role. This is about tech prowess \u2013 not different models of government \u2013 in a competition for power. But innovative development is tricky to predict. The risks of geopoliticising technology are that international cooperation in critical areas like clean energy and drug discovery will suffer \u2013 and the whole world will lose out.

(Source: The Guardian)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rishi Sunak is readying a billion pounds to subsidise the UK\u2019s fledgling microchip industry. It sounds big. But the British government is merely reacting to US economic warfare against China. Behind the talk of \u201cfriendshoring\u201d and resurgent industrial policy is a struggle to avoid collateral damage in the battle between China and the US for tech supremacy. The EU plans almost …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6307,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions\/6307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}