According to the assessment of an information technology expert, who spoke to “Sky News Arabia” about the matter, the drop in chip exports is putting China’s semiconductor-dependent industries in a suffocating crisis that has already begun, presenting solutions that Beijing could resort to, including the inclusion of Taiwan, famous for its chip industry.
China imported 146.8 billion ICs (a type of high-end chip) between January and April, down 21.1 percent from the same period last year, according to data released by the General Customs Administration.
The “American alliance” and the blockade
The United States has tightened its siege in recent months on China, with the Chip 4 alliance it formed from it and South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, all of which are countries in crisis with Beijing, and its goal is to reduce the range of tokens.
Among the recent movements of this coalition:
• Taiwan pledged in October to follow export controls issued by Washington, and Japan entered into a joint agreement with the United States and the Netherlands in January to coordinate export controls to the China.
• Beijing filed a complaint against the moves with the World Trade Organization, describing them as a violation of international trade rules.
• Washington has asked Seoul to pressure memory chipmakers in South Korea not to fill any gaps in China.
• Also in October, Washington granted South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix companies a one-year exemption from comprehensive export controls that limit the supply of cutting-edge technologies to their facilities in China, and South Korea’s Minister of Commerce, Lee Chang Yang, said the planned exemption that will expire next October can be extended “for a long time”.
repercussions of the blockade
• China’s total imports from South Korea fell 27.7% over the past four months, the largest drop among China’s major trading partners, and imports from Japan and Taiwan fell 27.5%.
• Taiwan shipped $151 million worth of chipmaking machinery to China and Hong Kong in April, down 26% from a year earlier.
• South Korea’s microchip exports to China decreased by 44.5% in the first quarter of this year (2023), on an annual basis.
“it worked”
Information technology expert Abd al-Rahman Daoud believes that the alliance established by America “has already succeeded” in reducing imports to China, and creating a crisis for Chinese industry.
We deduce that:
• By monitoring the chip markets, we have ensured that there is a crisis in China, and the stock of chips will run out quickly with the industrial boom.
• China’s efforts to localize the chip industry will take a long time to make it independent of imports, and if China does not find a way to ensure the continued arrival of chips, it will suffer a major industrial crisis.
• The possibility of China using industrial methods that preceded the chip industry to fill the void will make Chinese products completely uncompetitive.
• In the midst of this pressure, China may find that Taiwan is the solution to the chip crisis, and this is one of the reasons for the war.
China is working to overcome the blockade by finding local alternatives, including Huawei Technologies’ announcement of its success in replacing thousands of electronic components used in the manufacture of its phones, which are banned by Washington, with Chinese alternatives. .
Read the Latest World News Today on The Eastern Herald.
