targets for new export-control rules prohibiting sales to Chinese chipmakers. That
would set Chinese efforts back years. Chinese firms working on equivalent machines are
nowhere near ready.
There is a less aggressive alternative. America could, with Joe Biden as president, adopt
a more nuanced approach. Instead of Donald Trump’s unilateral, hard-man tactics,
America could try to build a consensus with its allies about the common threat a
thriving Chinese chipmaking industry would pose.
This would mean striking agreements with friendly governments about which
technologies could be sold to Chinese companies, and which pose a threat. The market
for selling advanced technologies into China is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, too
big to ignore. If America and its allies do not move together, a blockade may create an
opportunity for Japan, Europe or South Korea.
Instead of expecting allies to sign up to its own export controls, America would involve
them earlier on, identifying mutual interests and threats. This would allow for a joint
effort to squeeze and shape China’s technology ecosystem, without the risk of losing all
contact with it, and thereby all control. But if America chooses not to pursue this course,
in 2021 China’s chipmakers will enter a new, and potentially more hostile, phase in
which they must thrive without America, or die. It may take time, but given the
country’s record over the past 40 years, few people would bet against them on that.
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