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:

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

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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Chapter in an Edited Volume

“Trust, Distrust, and Power” in Distrust – ed. Russell Hardin

The so-called “encapsulated interest” account of trust, developed by Russell Hardin together with other interested scholars, draws together an important body of thought about trust and its meaning in social and personal relations.1 Trust, under this account, involves considered expectations about the interests of others to behave in a trustworthy manner. Some scholars argue that ...
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