Kicking away the ladder

The Party Congress has slowed the leadership’s response to the semiconductor export controls introduced by the Biden administration two weeks ago. But the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has, according to Bloomberg, been conducting emergency meetings with chipmakers. They have few good options. The US moves are a major threat to China’s technological ambitions and an illustration of why China is in a much weaker position than the US and its allies as each attempts to secure access to strategically-important supplies.