China is broadening efforts to control which technologies leave its factories and laboratories, a strategy that could make it more difficult for rival countries to reduce their reliance on Chinese suppliers.
Among the affected products are tunnel-boring machines, massive industrial systems used to excavate routes for roads and railways. Only a small number of companies manufacture them, most of them in China. India uses the machines for tunnel projects in the Himalayas, including infrastructure intended to improve its ability to move troops near its contested border with China. From next month, Beijing is expected to have greater control over whether India can purchase them.
Over the past month, China has also moved to restrict exports of dozens of other technologies. The measures include drones, artificial intelligence models and related agents, as well as certain processes used to develop advanced medicines and manufacture solar panels.
The restrictions could make it harder for companies in the United States and other countries to establish solar-equipment factories capable of competing with Chinese manufacturers. They could also limit access outside China to some of the country’s newest and most powerful artificial intelligence models.
The measures reinforce Beijing’s strategy of keeping Chinese factories indispensable to global supply chains, even as governments around the world seek to reduce their dependence on China.
Sources: The New York Times World.