It was a well-rehearsed scene as yet another company made its debut on Shanghai’s STAR market, China’s answer to the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The executives huddled together to strike the gong, confetti erupted over the red carpet and strobe lights danced around the hall.
But this celebration — for SMIC, China’s biggest manufacturer of semiconductors — was different. Semiconductors have emerged as a flashpoint in the increasingly tense U.S.-China relationship, and SMIC’s initial public offering (IPO) was as much an assertion of China’s techno-nationalism as it was a stock offering.
Just one month before, Huawei was sanctioned by the U.S. and cut off from its supply of semiconductor chips.Huawei was SMIC’s biggest customer SMIC’s July IPO provided an unexpected lift. It was China’s biggest listing in a decade, raising $7.6 billion. And many of its shares were sold to state firms and patriotic retail investors, determined to support China’s homegrown chip efforts.
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