But as I reported yesterday, China’s new export controls may not have much long-term impact. “Export control is not as effective if the technologies are available in other markets,” Sarah Bauerle Danzman, an associate professor of international studies at Indiana University Bloomington, told me. Since the technology to produce gallium and germanium is very mature, it won’t be too hard for mines in other countries to ramp up their production, although it will take time, investment, policy incentives, and maybe technological improvement to make the process more environmentally friendly.

So what happens now? Half of 2023 is now behind us, and even though there have been a few diplomatic events showing the US-China relationship warming up, like trips to China made by US officials Antony Blinken and Janet Yellen, the tensions on the technological front are only getting worse.

When the US instituted its chip-related export restrictions in October, it wasn’t clear how much of an impact they would have, because the US doesn’t control the entirety of the semiconductor supply chain. Analysts said one of the biggest outstanding questions was the extent to which the US could persuade its allies to join the blockade. 

Now the US has managed to get the key players on board. In May, Japan announced that it is limiting the export of 23 types of equipment used in a variety of chipmaking processes. It even went further than the original US rules. The US limited the export of tools for making the most cutting-edge chips—those of the 14-nanometer generation and under. Japan’s restrictions extend to older, less-advanced chip generations (all the way to the 45-nanometer level), which has the Chinese semiconductor industry worried that production of basic chips used in everyday products, like cars, will also be affected.

At the end of June, the Netherlands followed suit and announced that it will limit the export to China of deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines used to pattern chips. That’s also an escalation of the previous rules, which since 2019 had only limited export of the most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines.