Everybody knows trade wars are a losing game, except Washington
The Biden administration is considering tougher restrictions on the exchange of advanced semi-conductor technology with China, given that those imposed so far have proved useless.
As was to be expected, Washington is not winning the trade war with Beijing. Chinese companies are still able to access the microprocessors they need, either through suppliers who refuse to recognize Washington’s sanctions, or through cloud providers that allow them to use their infrastructure. Chips like the one in the photograph are constantly being imported into China, and nobody can apparently do anything to prevent it.
At the same time, the sanctions have encouraged domestic producers, and in particular Huawei, which is close to finishing the construction of its largest chip research and development center in Shanghai, a move that is likely to boost China’s technological ambitions despite the best efforts of the United States.
Covering more than 1.6 million square meters in the city’s Qingpu district, the park will be home to about 30,000 people, and has its own road network and an elevated rail system. The measures the US administration has taken to try to block exports of chip-making hardware to China simply aren’t working, largely because companies like the Netherlands-based company ASML, which makes…
