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China’s limits on chip metals self-defeating, US national security adviser says

  • China has said that gallium and germanium, along with their chemical compounds, will be subject to export controls meant to protect national security from August 1
  • ‘I think it’s a self-defeating move because I believe that will only reinforce the determination of many other countries in the world to de-risk,’ Jake Sullivan said

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US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Photo: Abaca Press / TNS

China will only harm itself with planned restrictions on the export of two metals used in the semiconductor, telecommunications and electric-vehicle industries, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.

“I think it’s a self-defeating move because I believe that will only reinforce the determination of many other countries in the world to de-risk,” Sullivan said in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation.

Those countries will be spurred “to find ways to reduce dependencies and increase the resilience of their own supply chains, including for the kinds of minerals that are at issue in this particular decision,” he said.

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China has said that gallium and germanium, along with their chemical compounds, will be subject to export controls meant to protect Chinese national security starting from August 1. It’s the latest episode in a growing tit-for-tat trade war over dominance in technology between China on one side and the US and Europe on the other.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has been stepping up diplomacy to tell Beijing that while the US doesn’t intend to “decouple” from trade with China, it will defend what it views as its national security interests.

China’s export curbs follow US-led efforts to restrict exports of advanced chip-making technology to China and the Biden administration is said to be planning to block sales of some chips used to run artificial-intelligence programmes. China is the dominant global producer of gallium and germanium.

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