How is China responding to chip restrictions? Made in China 2025 and its own chips
In 2020 China imported over 83% of the chips it used, and a 2015 industrial plan set out to change that.
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China's answer to chip restrictions is to try to make more of what it needs itself, a goal that predates the export controls. In May 2015 Premier Li Keqiang signed Made in China 2025, a national strategic plan and to develop China's manufacturing sector. Its goals include raising the Chinese-domestic content of core materials to 40 percent by 2020 and 70 percent by 2025, and the industry is central to the plan, partly because chip advances may lead to breakthroughs in other areas of technology.
There was a lot to catch up on. In 2020, imports took up over 83 percent, or $199.7 billion, of total chip sales in China. Since then, Chinese firms and the state have pushed in several ways. In September 2023 Huawei launched the Mate 60 smartphone, powered by a chip made in China by , the first processor to use SMIC's new technology. In December 2023 China prohibited the use of from the US companies Intel and AMD in government PCs and servers.
Views on the plan differ. In 2018 the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think tank, called it a threat to US technological leadership, while the Li Keqiang government maintained that it aligns with China's obligations. The EU Chamber of Commerce in China said that the initiative distorts the market. And a significant dependency on foreign technology remained in semiconductors.
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Recap
China's push for its own chips began in 2015, well before the 2022 US controls, and assessments of its success differ.
💡 A trick to remember it · A seed planted in 2015 and watered harder after 2022: supporters see growth, critics see waste.
Surprising fact · In 2020 imports took up over 83 percent of China's total chip sales.
Connects to
- 🏭 How is a computer chip made, and why does it take months?
- 🚫 What are US export controls on advanced chips, and what did the October 2022 rules do?
- 🐋 What is DeepSeek, and why did its cheap AI model shake the stock market?
- 📡 Why did many countries restrict Huawei from their 5G networks?
- Tsmc
- Industrial policy
Sources (5)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (17 claims) cites at least one of these.