Henry Farrell

How the U.S. Stumbled Into Using Chips as a Weapon Against China – with Abraham Newman

Last October, the Biden administration unleashed one of its biggest countermeasures to date against China’s military ambitions: export controls on, among other things, cutting-edge semiconductors used for AI systems. The new rule restricts not just U.S. companies but any manufacturer that uses specified U.S. software or technology to build their products. As Kevin Wolf, who ran the U.S. export-control regime from 2010 to 2017, put it, foreign dependence on U.S. equipment means that every such chip “on the planet” is now subject to U.S. controls.

The measure has alarmed China. President Xi Jinping blames the U.S. for orchestrating a campaign to encircle, suppress and contain his country, while commentators claim that the U.S. is drawing closed a “Silicon Curtain.”

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “How the U.S. Stumbled Into Using Chips as a Weapon Against China,” Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2023.

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Other Writing:

Academic Article

“Conclusions,” in West European Politics – with Adrienne Hèritier

March 15, 2007 EU West European Politics 30 with Adrienne Hèritier
The articles in this volume provide evidence supporting the claim that organisational actors within the EU do engage in contestation over competences over a wide variety of legislative and policy-making procedures. Far from defining EU politics, treaty texts are only their beginning. The articles also provide evidence that informal changes may be translated into treaty ...
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Chapter in an Edited Volume

“The Political Economy of the Internet and E-Commerce,” in Political Economy and the Changing Global Order (third edition) – eds. Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey R.D. Underhill

September 1, 2005 eds. Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey R.D. Underhill Oxford: 2005
How have new information technologies affected international political economy? In the heady years of the dot com bubble, many academics and commentators predicted that the Internet and e-commerce would empower private actors and weaken states. Indeed, some libertarians hoped that the Internet would lead to a collapse in state authority. However, these predictions have not ...
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