The U.S. government has slowly realized that one of its best options for protecting America's tech edge is by weaponizing the semiconductor supply chain.
It was 2015, and Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich couldn’t hide his anxiety about China’s push to seize a bigger share of the world’s chip industry. As chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association, the U.S. chip industry’s trade group, Krzanich was tasked with hobnobbing with U.S. government officials. Usually this meant asking for tax cuts or reduced regulation. But this time, as he met with senior Obama administration officials, the topic was different: convincing the U.S. government to do something about China’s massive semiconductor subsidies.
America’s chip firms were all caught in the same bind. China was a crucial market, either because these firms sold directly to Chinese customers or because their chips were assembled into smartphones or computers in China. But, at the same time, the Chinese government had adopted a formal policy of trying to cut them out of China’s supply chain, devoting billions of dollars and its best minds to developing its own sem
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
When Ken Wilcox, a former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, moved to Shanghai in 2011, he was optimistic and eager to start up the bank's new joint venture in China. A decade later, however, he is extremely cynical about U.S. business interests in China. While analysts will, rightly, be debating SVB's missteps in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, Wilcox insists the bank's challenges in China should not be overlooked.
The former secretary of state talks about how the Trump administration changed U.S.-China relations; why he accused Beijing of genocide in Xinjiang; and why U.S. politicians should visit Taiwan.