A shortage of raw materials for chipmaking is just one of the inevitable consequences of US restrictions on tech exports to China. The escalating trade row between the two superpowers — via a whole panoply of export controls, blacklisted entities and tariffs — carries ship loads of collateral damage.
Tit-for-tat restrictions are the most obvious. Beijing’s curbs on shipments of germanium and gallium, used in military communications kit as well as making semiconductors, mean western manufacturers are paying more, or going without.
Next, withholding tech puts more impetus on the targeted country to develop its own. Huawei, the Chinese telecoms group that has long been in Washington’s crosshairs, worked with domestic chipmaker SMIC to produce its system-on-a-chip Kirin 9000S. It caught US officials unaware when various testing teams showed its performance ranked alongside one-or-two-year-old chips produced by Qualcomm.