The U.S. won't block China's technological advancement. (PHOTO: VCG)

By GONG Qian

One year ago, the U.S. didn't foresee that it would fail to block China's technological advancement. It added 31 Chinese entities to the "unverified list" of its Bureau of Industry and Security. Prior to that, it had amended its Export Administration Regulationsto implement necessary controls onsemiconductor in October 2022. This was regarded as a major step in Washington's policy.

Since that, the Biden administration has also already released a sweeping set of economic rulesto prevent China from purchasing advanced equipment and acquiring relevant technologoies, thus accelerating decoupling from Beijing in the semiconductor industry.

The core interest of the U.S. lies in safeguarding its tech hegemony. But the fact is that the U.S.' tactics of economic coercion don't work the way expected.

A year later, the U.S. may suffer difficulties due to its wrong decision, though the arrogant Uncle Sam won't admit it. The New York Times (NYT) reported in early October that the big U.S. chip makers like Nvidia, Intel and Qualcomm has campaigned to protect their business with China.

Actually, Bloomberg reported in July that these chip manufacturers were planning to lobby against extending restrictions on the sale to China of certain chips and the equipment to manufacture the semiconductors that the Biden administration was set to roll out. They said being cut off from their largest market will harm their ability to spend on advancing their technology and ultimately undermine U.S. leadership. These chip giants' lobbying has lead to a delay in new restrictions, said NYT.

"An unintended consequence of U.S. export controls on advanced chip technology to China may be a wave of state-backed investment leading to overproduction and, potentially, Chinese dominance of global legacy chip production,"said a report bythe U.S. think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Both U.S. industry professionals and analysts would admit that the U.S. crackdown on China's semiconductor industry cannot stop China's progress. It will actually accelerate its development of an independent domestic chip industry.

It is clear that there is a rift between the Biden administration and businesses group. However, the U.S. government seems to bask in the glory of being the "overlord of the world" and is trying to push its leading companies into a tech war with China.

Currently, the RISC-V chip technology — an open-source technology and can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for AI — has emerged as new battleground in the China-U.S. tech war. The U.S. government will possibly to restrict American companies from collaborating with Chinese companies on RISC-V. If it succeeds, that would be a "tremendous tragedy," Jack Kang, vice president of business development at SiFive, a California-based startup using RISC-V, told Reuters.

Just as NYT said, "The economic interdependence of the U.S. and China, which has roots stretching back decades, means that any action by Washington to confront Beijing risks causing harm at home."