The Boomerang: How America’s Semiconductor War Backfired

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that Washington strategists should have remembered: “When you shoot an arrow of revenge, dig two graves.” They didn’t listen. And now we are watching the most spectacular economic boomerang in modern history. Three years ago, the United States launched what its architects called the “nuclear option” against China. They banned the export of advanced semiconductors. They blocked the machines that manufacture them. They told Beijing: your technological future ends here. In the halls of the Pentagon, there was a quiet celebration. The thinking was seductive in its simplicity. Without American chips, China’s artificial intelligence revolution would die. Its economy would stagnate. Its military would fall behind. The CEOs of major American tech giants are […]