Recently, the United States has been pressuring allies such as Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea to expand chip restrictions on China. According to a report by Bloomberg on the 19th, citing sources familiar with the matter, a senior U.S. official is about to visit Japan and the Netherlands to try to urge allies to further impose new restrictions on China's semiconductor industry, including limiting China's ability to develop high-end memory chips needed for artificial intelligence.
But the U.S. has been trying to persuade the Netherlands and Japan to further restrict China's access to semiconductor technology, but the two countries want more time to assess the impact of the current export ban on high-end chip-making equipment and focus on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November, people familiar with the matter said earlier.
At the same time, according to the website of the U.S. Department of Commerce, on June 26, local time, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo met with South Korea's Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Ahn De-geun and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeru Saito in Washington, D.C.
At the meeting, the United States and Japan failed to agree on further sanctions on China's chip industry. According to the report, the United States and Japan have different opinions on export restrictions to China: Japan is worried that if the controls are expanded, China may take countermeasures against Japan. And Japan is not fully prepared for this.
At the same time, a senior Japanese official said: "We oppose the expansion of regulation because it will hinder the development of the industry." ”
The Japanese media believe that the US strategy of blocking China's technological innovation has not made the expected progress. Even if Japan implements stricter semiconductor export control regulations, China can also purchase related products from other countries, which will only lead to the loss of market share for Japanese companies.
At the same time, countries such as the Netherlands and South Korea have also expressed dissatisfaction with the U.S. requirements due to increased pressure on relevant enterprises due to export controls.
Since the end of last year, the United States has been pressuring allies such as Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea to further expand chip restrictions on China.
But at the same time, since 2024, exports of semiconductor equipment and products from Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea to China have surged:
Japan's exports of semiconductor equipment to China in the first quarter of 2024 reached 521.2 billion yen, an increase of 82% compared to the same period in 2023. The Japanese media noted that the amount was the highest since 2007, for which comparable data were available.
In April and May 2024, Japan's exports of semiconductor equipment to China surged by 95.4% and 130.7% year-on-year, respectively. The surge in exports of semiconductor equipment to China has become a key factor driving Japan's export growth.
At the same time, the number and value of lithography machines exported by the Netherlands to China have also increased significantly. According to customs data, from January to February 2024 alone, China has imported 32 lithography machines to ASML, totaling US$1.057 billion, a year-on-year increase of 256%.
At the same time, according to ASML's financial report, in the first quarter of 2024, the proportion of revenue in Chinese mainland has risen from 39% in the fourth quarter of last year to 49%.
In addition, exports of Korean semiconductor products and technologies to China are also growing rapidly. According to a June 26 report on the website of the Russian news agency Sputnik, according to the results of the first five months of this year, China has become South Korea's largest exporter of goods, squeezing the United States from the first position.
Between January and May 2024, South Korea provided $70.9 billion worth of products to China, replacing the United States, which took the lead in the same period last year. The U.S. fell to second place with a total supply of $67.6 billion. South Korea's analysis of trade data suggests that this is mainly due to an increase in exports of IT (information technology) products such as semiconductors and displays to China.
Since the United States began to implement a technological blockade on China, Chinese enterprises have not only made breakthroughs in the field of high-end chips, but also further consolidated and enhanced their advantages in the field of mature chips. According to data from a number of market research companies, China will likely become the country with the largest production capacity in the world's mature chip field around 2026.
China is the world's largest consumer of semiconductors, and China's manufacturing scale, automobile production, and exports of automobiles, high-tech and electronic products are the world's largest, which will provide huge market space and good development opportunities for Chinese chip companies.
The failure of the U.S. technology blockade to make the expected progress has led to a decline in the confidence of the U.S. allies, who have not only responded more and more passively to U.S. coercion, but have even been inconsistent with what they appear to be, but have continued to increase exports to China.