In 2024, China's Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs and the Ministry of Equipment Development jointly issued an announcement on the implementation of export restrictions on aerospace structural parts, engine manufacturing equipment, and related software and technology. This policy has hit the United States the import of aero engine blades.
Many people are curious, isn't the engine of United States the first class in the world? Why do we need to import from China?
In fact, as the hollowing out of the manufacturing industry in the United States has become more serious, the United States has the technology, but there is no production line that can manufacture it. It is a company in Wuxi that processes turbine blades for GE, and the reason why we are looking for a Chinese company, in addition to the fact that China has a complete industrial chain, is that China has almost monopolized rare metals such as gallium, indium, antimony and heavy rare earths, and these rare metals are needed for the manufacture of aero engines.
The processing of turbine blades in the world is not a few companies can be completed, you know, the blade is a part of the aviation engine parts with many production processes (40~60 processes), long cycle and low pass rate, and the key equipment for its production includes heat treatment furnace and single crystal furnace. The temperature in the furnace is 1330 °C when the blades are produced in the first-stage aviation heat treatment furnace, and the temperature difference between any two points in the furnace is in the range of plus or minus 3 °C.
How good is this company that supplies turbine blades to General Electric of United States? In 2014, in Berlin, Germany, it won a ten-year contract of no less than 20% of the annual share of R-R engine low-pressure turbine disc forgings 1~3, breaking the history of the world's three major aviation giants never purchasing superalloy rotating parts in China and even Asia.
What is the situation now? First of all, the U.S. military's F35 has fallen into a shutdown crisis, from 2023, China will cut off the supply of gallium, the United States' F35 production difficulties, as of September 2024, the F-35 stealth fighter has not been delivered to customers for 14 months.
In order to meet its own needs, the US military has to concentrate all its inventory resources to produce F414 engines. And for the obsolete F404 engine, production can only be stopped, and this stop production, first of all, India will stop the production plan of twenty-four LCA fighters this year.
Secondly, Poland had to cancel the follow-up contract with Korea for FA-50 trainer attack aircraft and was ready to return one of the squadrons that had already been delivered. Because Korea's FA-50 trainer attack aircraft uses United States engines.
Against this background, the United States proposed a compromise: to deliver engines without blades, and India or Korea to order blades directly from China. But how can India and Korea go directly to China?
The current situation is that whether it is the core material of gunpowder or the core material of missiles, fighter planes, and warships, China has completely cut off the supply United States. Bob Kavetsky, a well-known expert at the Energetic Technology Center (ETC), a non-profit research group working in the United States government, said directly, in this case, what do we use to win against China?
Many people will think, am I exaggerating, but the reality is like this, let United States fall into this predicament and crisis, in fact, it is not China, but United States themselves, if United States do not abandon the manufacturing industry, then will not encounter such a problem.
Of course, many people will ask, why can't help at the beginning, we have to know, the card is not a one-time out, and to collapse a country's industrial chain, the best way is not sanctions but dumping, in fact, United States is also doing this, when China was just preparing to develop EDA tools, United States released export restrictions, United States EDA tools are cheaper and more mature, domestic enterprises have given up self-developed EDA, and the chip industry, because of its importance, China is to raise the strength of the whole country to get it, United States dumping has no way to prevent China from developing the chip industry, so it can only impose sanctions and try to slow down the speed of China's development.
China did not prohibit it at the beginning, in order to let United States give up the development of its related industrial chain, whether it is rare earth, gallium, germanium or antimony, United States there is no relevant industrial chain in China, even if there are mines in the country, there is no way to refine, because there is no relevant talent, equipment, technology in China, if you want to completely do it, it will take at least 10-15 years, this time, and then ban, 10 years, can develop a new generation of technology.
Finally, the supply of raw materials is far more troublesome than the supply of technology or products, because technology and products can break through, but raw materials are not, so you can't conjure it out of thin air, and now China's biggest advantage is that it has monopolized many rare metals.
This is China's trump card, and of course it will not be played all at once.