At the end of January, the American authorities obtained from Japan and the Netherlands a new limitation on the export of equipment aimed at producing semiconductors in China. [...] 

Details of the agreement are not yet known. “What is the ceiling imposed on the restrictions, what level of engraving is concerned? The second thing is to know which American arguments have weighed in the balance…” wonders Mathilde Velliet, researcher in geopolitics of technologies at the French Institute of Relations international (Ifri). Be that as it may, the specialist recognizes the “coherence” with which the United States is advancing on this file. First part of the American tactic: “run faster”. In short: relocate production. The United States was for a long time the first semiconductor factory in the world, before seeing Asian countries catch up with them at the beginning of the millennium. Joe Biden passed a Chips and Science Act this summer worth more than $52 billion. The Taiwanese behemoth TSMC will also build no less than two factories in Arizona.

The Chinese response will be keenly scrutinized. Mirroring the United States, the communist regime announced in December the implementation of a plan of 143 billion dollars over five years, accompanied by new massive subsidies for its companies in the sector (already under infusion for years). A complaint against the World Trade Organization (WTO) has also been filed. According to Beijing, Washington “threatens the stability of the global industrial supply chain”. The communist regime has finally undertaken some reprisals, such as the recent suspension of short visas for South Koreans and Japanese, penalizing employees of multinationals Samsung or SK Hynix present on the spot. And plans to pose obstacles to the export of material for the construction of solar panels, a market very largely dominated by China. Reprisals, it is true, with limited repercussions.

They can’t really go any further so as not to make the situation worse,” points out Mathilde Velliet.

The article is available at: Time.News.