Recently, the US government further refined the measures on chip exports to China, modifying the rules on Chinese chip restrictions, the 166 pages of the new regulations clearly, the chip restrictions on Chinese exports will also apply to laptops containing AI chips, which means that the US chip restrictions on China expand to a wider range of consumer electronics. This move not only once again limits the rapid development of China's chip field, but also brings crisis and hidden dangers to the recovery of the global technology industry, at the same time, does not rule out the hidden political plot behind.
According to a number of media reports, the revised restrictions are scheduled to take effect on April 4 this year. As we all know, the US government issued a chip restriction order in China in October last year, prohibiting chip manufacturers such as Nvidia from selling the most advanced version of AI chips to China. In terms of content, the revision is an update on the basis of the ban in October last year. In general, the strengthening of the United States chip export measures to China mainly includes restricting the export of its advanced chip technology, strengthening the approval process of export applications, and expanding the scope of export control products. This tit-for-tat situation will not only affect the economic and trade relations between the two countries, but also have a long-term impact on the global science and technology field.
It can be said that increased sanctions may slow down China's development, but the impact is extremely limited. Compared with last year's relatively vague control content based on process nodes, the pertinence and accuracy of the provisions are more clear, which is a new change worth paying attention to for the Chinese government and chip companies. Through further interpretation of the rules, it is not difficult to find that such restrictions on high-end Gpus in addition to transmission speed but also increase the performance of the control dimension, not only Nvidia and other American companies to provide special versions of the chip in China will be further restricted, but also means that Chinese companies to use some other means to bypass the United States control space is more narrow. These all reflect the determination of the United States to limit China's AI development.
The first reason why the United States is imposing restrictions at this point in time is economic. Since Biden signed the chip ban in 2022, the purpose of the United States to limit China's economic rise has not been achieved. In each of the four quarters of 2023, 19 of the 20 fastest growing chip industry companies in the world are from China, compared with only eight companies in the same period in 2022. Not only is the number increasing, but the economic efficiency data is also very bright, and the revenue growth rate of these Chinese chip industry companies is several times that of global well-known semiconductor companies such as ASML, which is enough to prove the failure of US sanctions.
Second, in the United States election year, playing the China card has become a bipartisan consensus in the United States. The United States will usher in the presidential election in November this year, and the current Democratic President Joe Biden and the former Republican president Donald Trump have locked up their respective party's nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Four years later, the two will face off again. It is worth noting that recently, from Biden's State of the Union speech hyping "competition with China", the annual report of the US intelligence agency exaggerating the "China-Russia threat", to Trump's threat that if he is successfully elected will impose 60% tariffs on Chinese goods, including the chip limit increase, the US election time and again will focus on China, the purpose is to win the election by playing the China card.
It is not new for the United States to obtain political and economic benefits through hegemonic means, but this outdated means can no longer cover up the fact that the United States is on the decline, and in the long run, the United States will be attacked.
