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US, China must restart talks to end trade war, ensuring global semiconductor supply chains remain intact

  • Senior industry executives call on governments around the world to resist decoupling supply chains and disentangling economic cooperation.

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Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp is mainland China’s largest contract chip maker. Photo: Handout
Zen Sooin Hong KongandSarah Daiin Beijing

The United States and China will need to return to the negotiating table and seek an end to their trade war, which would help spur more advances to be made in the highly interdependent field of semiconductors.

“This is now a global industry, with everyone dependent on everyone else with these amazing, sophisticated supply chains,” said John Neuffer, president and chief executive of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), at the IC China conference in Shanghai on Tuesday. “It’s very clear that no one country – no one company – can do it all.”

His view echoed those of other senior industry executives at the conference amid concerns that a prolonged US-China trade dispute could seriously disrupt the sector’s complex, geographically widespread and intertwined value chain and ecosystem that has evolved over decades.

What has been “very troubling for our industry are the growing calls for decoupling the supply chain … [as if the industry] can somehow survive and thrive in a bipolar [global] economy”, said Neuffer, whose Washington-based trade group represents major semiconductor firms such as Intel Corp, Qualcomm, Micron Technology and Broadcom Corp.

John Neuffer, president and chief executive at Washington-based trade group the Semiconductor Industry Association. Photo: Facebook
John Neuffer, president and chief executive at Washington-based trade group the Semiconductor Industry Association. Photo: Facebook

Despite the trade tensions, the SIA’s Neuffer has called on governments around the world to resist decoupling supply chains and disentangling economic cooperation. “We need to get back to the table to negotiate a win-win outcome in trade negotiations between China and the US,” he said.

Zen Soo
Zen Soo worked at the Post from 2015 until 2019. She covered China technology, in particular e-commerce, online to offline and mobile payments. She also wrote about Southeast Asian tech companies.
Sarah Dai
Sarah Dai is a senior technology reporter with the Post. Based in Beijing, she has been following China’s AI champions since 2017, with industry focuses on security, autonomous driving, healthcare and data analytics. Previously, she worked as financial correspondent for Caixin Media in Hong Kong for more than two years and wrote for China Daily in Beijing and London.
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