How China’s self-sufficiency drive is dividing the global tech ecosystem

Countries need to be ready for a world of bifurcated supply chains and data flows, economist Gary Ng says during a panel hosted by the Post

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Trade disputes with the US have spurred China’s investment in technological independence, especially in semiconductors, said Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis Corporate & Investment Bank. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 5:48pm, 8 May 2025Updated: 12:50pm, 9 May 2025

China is rapidly advancing its technological self-sufficiency in semiconductors and biotechnology, a trend accelerated by escalating trade tensions with the US, industry experts said in a webinar hosted by the South China Morning Post’s China Future Tech.

“We need to be ready to see a world that will be increasingly polarised, basically with the bifurcation in supply chains, which could be about manufacturing, which could be about data flows … could be about investment,” said Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis Corporate & Investment Bank, during the panel discussion on Thursday.

Ng noted that the ongoing US-China trade disputes have spurred China’s investment in technological independence, especially in semiconductor capabilities. Since 2018, China’s research and development spending in technology has increased from about 2 per cent of gross domestic product to 2.6 per cent, surpassing the European Union but still trailing the US.

“We will begin to see two separate tech ecosystems in the future, one maybe dominated by China, the other one led by the US,” Ng said. “Different countries … will need to decide which one to get into.”

Huawei Technologies’ resurgence epitomises China’s strides towards tech independence. “In 2023, August, Huawei surprised the world by quietly releasing for the domestic market its own 5G smartphone, which they had actually given up … because of the [US] trade sanctions,” said Bien Perez, a senior production editor at the Post. Perez added that while Huawei’s domestic revival was robust, the lack of access to foreign tech ecosystems – such as Google services on Android – remained a hurdle in global markets.

Perez highlighted China’s accelerating push for semiconductor self-reliance, citing companies such as Huawei, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC) as examples of how the country is building up a comprehensive chip supply chain covering design, manufacturing, testing and packaging.