The “lose-lose” behind China’s self-sufficiency push

A push to raise China’s self-sufficiency in key technology sectors looks likely to be a theme of the new Five-Year Plan that the leadership will discuss at next week’s Plenum. Many commentators appear to believe that success in nurturing a domestic semiconductor industry would turbo-charge China’s economy. We think the opposite is more likely to be true. But faced with the prospect of being cut off from foreign supply chains, the leadership may have no better options.