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technology war between the world’s two
largest economies, with a leading Chinese
telecom equipment maker caught in the
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technologies, commodities, components
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ment.
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Shenzhen, in south China’s Guangdong
Province, ZTE Chairman Yin Yimin stated
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rights and interests through all available
legal means. On the same day, the DOC
granted ZTE’s request to submit more
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Stock Exchange on May 6, ZTE said that
it had submitted an application to the
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business ban and had provided additional
material at its request.
Since ZTE mainly imports microchips, a key
component used in telecommunications
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tion will come to a halt once its current
chip inventory is used up. It remains to be
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setback.
One thing, however, is certain: The U.S.
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reliance on chip imports and the stagnant
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country to speed up plans to develop and
patent domestic chip technologies. The
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on the news as more resources will likely
be diverted into the sector amid a national
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key technologies.
Laggarddevelopment
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ally.
However, the country mainly relies on
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oil imports.
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Leading U.S. chipmakers Qualcomm,
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global sales in China.
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tor and electronics industry, said that the
reason why China relies so heavily on chip
imports is because domestic producers
lag behind their global peers in almost
every way, and that everyone has a share
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global chips but cost less. They even use
domestic companies as a bargaining chip
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pliers,” Gu told
Beijing Review
, explaining
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“Things are the same when it comes to
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margin,” Gu said.
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Chinese chipmakers.
Yuan said that the chip industry is
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stantial investment to make technological
breakthroughs.
“Chip users and chip producers have to
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customizing chips according to user
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expenditure on developing and testing
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tion,” Yuan said.
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making industry. China established an
IC Fund in 2014, which accumulatively
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Yuan said. “You cannot expect Chinese
researchers to achieve more with less
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“The more we spend on research and
development now, the more we’ll save in
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Seeking anewedge
Experts predict that the domestic chip
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investment and luring more talent.
“Once more and more chip users realize
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they will start using Chinese chips. Building
a production line requires considerable
investment. But once production starts, the
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be lower as shipments increase,” Yuan said.
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and a development miracle in which China
When the
Chips AreDown
China’s homegrown chip industry rallies in the
face of the U.S. ban on ZTE By
Zhou Xiaoyan