Commentary: De-risking relations with China, a boomerang on Washington

BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- On the heels of Biden's recent ban on new investments in China's high-tech industry, it seems that despite the facade of Beijing visits and cooperation talks, Washington still wants to play the de-risking card by the end of the day.

Washington's targeted punitive schemes are unlikely to drag China down in the long term, nor will they help with its own industrial development. Its dogged de-risking moves, not least in imposing bans on China, may well end up blowing up in its own face.

Both the de-coupling and de-risking narratives mean to ostracize China and curb its high-tech advancement, but China is building up greater resilience than any containments could quench, whether it be evident or ulterior.

Washington is so used to wielding its monetary hegemony and financial sanctions to intervene in global economy and rake in large fortunes. Printing excessive money, implementing trade sanctions and tariffs, tightening monetary policy ... These are its commonplace ploys, whose consequences, however, are borne by other countries, notably emerging economies.

China, undeterred by a series of economic pressures and sanctions from the United States, still managed to make its GDP expand by 5.5 percent in the first half of this year.

On the one hand, as the world's second-largest economy, China boasts a complete industrial system and a comprehensive supply chain, hence its self-sufficiency and immunity to external impact to a certain degree.

China's enormous market with robust demand gives it another guarantee. Its largest and ever-growing middle-class cohort naturally generates huge needs, unleashing immense consumption potential and providing a broad market for various goods and services domestically and internationally.

Direct economic interactions with China seem shrinking as America turns to other countries. But China is, in essence, just simply repositioned on the supply chain as India, Mexico and Southeast Asia rely more on Chinese inputs after America's "de-risking" move.

Blessed with a vast labor force and efficient logistics, China can rest assured about a foothold in free markets. Just as The Economist, a British weekly, has observed, "China's dominance is undiminished."

The whole de-risking scheme has also served as a wake-up call to China, which comes to realize the significance of self-reliance and strives for technological breakthroughs.

China's self-made 28-nm lithography machine is expected to be delivered by year-end. It is among the mainstream tools used for semiconductor manufacturing, which will meet a significant portion of the market demand. Last month, another Chinese high-tech enterprise produced China's first high-end wafer laser cutting equipment with fully localized core components.

Rejecting the world's largest market will have severe consequences for U.S. chip companies and, in the long run, the global industry. Concerns are mounting that this will impair research and development investment in the industry, and ultimately weakens the U.S. dominant position in the semiconductor sector.

"Without orders from Chinese customers, there will be much less need to go ahead with projects such as Intel's planned factory complex in Ohio," Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger reportedly told U.S. top officials, said Bloomberg.

As the Semiconductor Industry Association said in July, restrictions on semiconductors "risk diminishing the U.S. semiconductor industry's competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and promoting continued escalatory retaliation by China."

Any ulterior curbs to throttle China's technological progress, be it under the guise of decoupling or de-risking, will come to naught and eventually backfire on America.