Beijing is delicious to adhere to top quality Chinese technology, with the aim of retaining critical knowledge within their borders while trade tensions with the US and Europe escalation.
In recent months, Chinese authorities have made it difficult for some engineers and equipment to leave the country, they have suggested new export controls to retain key battery technologies and moved to limit the technologies for processing critical minerals, according to multiple industry data and the Ministry’s notices.
The protection of leading technologies in the country comes in the midst of added tariffs from US President Donald Trump and trade with Europe over cars, threatening to encourage more local and foreign groups to move production elsewhere.
Among the companies that will be affected is the main Apple production partner Foxconn, which led the diversification of the Silicon Valley supply chain to India.
People who were familiar with the issue said that Chinese officials made it difficult for a manufacturer of Taiwan’s contract to send machines and technical Chinese managers to India, where Apple wants to build their supply chain.
The manager of another Taiwanese Electronics company said that they also face the challenges that have sent some equipment from China from China from China, although he noted that the shipments in Southeast Asia remained normal.
The Indian official allegedly used Customs delays to prevent the flow of components and equipment that goes south. “The electronic industry supply players have said that they do not establish production and assembly in India,” the official said, seeking not to be appointed. The media page has previously reported the rest of the world about some of Foxconn’s questions.
Analysts say that Beijing’s emerging book is like the limitations of Western technological transmission, which has been loudly criticized as dishonest. Informal controls seem particularly targeting the Chinese geopolitical rival India, with some Chinese groups saying that projects in Southeast Asia and the Middle East are not affected. But Beijing is also increasingly developing formal export limits to key technologies that apply around the world.
“A powerful supply chain and a qualified workforce are some of the few advantages that China still has these days,” an investor said in a company that faces the problems of moving some technical engineers abroad. “You don’t want to lose it in other countries.”
Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Trade proposed the limitations of exports of technologies associated with lithium drawing and making advanced batteries materials, both areas where the Earth has a leading position.
“China builds a large muscle for export control and is quite deliberate in what they decide to control,” said Antonia Hmaidi, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies. “It’s basically maintaining China in central for global supply chains,” she said.
Hmaidi said Beijing often aimed at areas near the top of the supply chain where Chinese groups controlled materials and technological processes, while the end products left uncontrolled.
Cory Combs at Consultancy Trivium China said that the interventions that Beijing stated in the battery supply chain were a “new class of export controls”.
If they were adopted in full, controls could prevent Chinese giant batteries with factories in Europe to move their entire supply chain abroad. Groups like CatL may need to continue importing of battery materials such as advanced cathodes of the Litis of Iron Phosphate (LFP) from China, instead of manufacturing or buying them locally, states the person who is familiar with the matter.
Chinese breakthroughs in LFP technology supported their giant batteries, replacing the South Korean and Japanese groups, which once dominated the battery industry.
Trying to make up for, the Korean groups began the partnership and purchase of the LFP cathode from China, which last year produced 99 percent of all active materials of LFP Cathode, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
New controls could threaten these contracts. A spokesman for the leading manufacturer of the Korean battery, who requested that their company would not be appointed, said they had communicated their concerns to the Chinese Ministry of Trade.
“We cannot exclude some adverse effects on our partnership with the Chinese company if the guidelines do not reflect our concern,” said the person.
Adham Sam, Battery Research Chief at an Analysis Company CRU Group, said: “Koreans need a top -notch Chinese technician, but [with the new export controls] They may only be able to access last year’s technologies – namely what is currently on the roads. “
The marked curbs for exporting lithium extraction technology could complicate development from the USA South America. A person close to CatL said the group would have to apply for export permits for the use of Chinese technology on a $ 1.4 billion project in Bolivia to draw lithium from salt in the country.
Anna Ashton, the founder of China Cinded Consulions Ashton Analytics, said Chinese groups pionered technology to extract and process the lithium of the rich salts from the deep underground, making many new mining projects.
“It is ironic that contracting with Chinese companies is currently the most effective means of bringing non-kine sources of mined and processed lithium online,” she said.
In strategic materials and minerals, Beijing gradually expanded its plates to turn on and control the export of key elements – such as rare countries, volphras and tellurium, among other things – to also limit the technologies used for their removal, refining or processing.
In December 2023, China has expanded even more controls, transformed into technology and processes that are converted by refined rare countries into metals and permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronics.
“China produces something like 95 percent of worldwide permanent magnets,” said an American group employee who built an alternative supply chain.
“The net effect of these export controls is that industrial diversification in some of these supply chains is reduced.”
The Chinese Ministry of Trade did not respond to the commentary request. FoxConn and Catl refused to comment.
Additional Gloria reporting in Hong Kong, Song Jung in Seoul, Nian Liu in Beijing
