U.S. puts the brakes on Chinese chip industry with new export rules

The Executive Office of the President published a broad list of export control measures on Friday, including actions aimed at cutting off China from certain semiconductor chips. Since such devices are manufactured around the world on U.S. equipment, America's reach would be much broader, which would only increase the chances of slowing Beijing's technological progress.

The implementation of these measures could lead to the biggest shift in U.S. policy regarding the supply of technological equipment to China since the 1990s. In this way, American authorities could hinder the development of the Chinese electronics industry by forcing their own and foreign companies, which use U.S. devices in their work, to stop supporting some leading Chinese factories and chip developers.

" This will set the Chinese back years ", said Jim Lewis, a technology and cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, D.C., who believes the policy resembles the hard rules of the height of the Cold War: " China has no intention of giving up chip production, but it will really be a deterrent for them".

Eric Sayers, a defense policy expert at the Enterprise Institute, said the move reflects a new attempt by the Biden administration to slow the pace of China's technological advance, not just level the playing field. " The scale of such measures and their possible consequences are staggering, but no doubt the devil will be in the details of their implementation", he added.