True security and competitiveness come from openness and cooperation: China Daily editorial

In Washington's telling, the tightening web of semiconductor restrictions is a necessary response to "national security risks". Yet to global markets it looks more like a self-defeating attempt to hold back the tide of change.

In a familiar pattern of escalation framed as prudence, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced the bipartisan MATCH Act on Wednesday, aiming to curb China's semiconductor advancement by tightening export controls on manufacturing equipment, especially from allies.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has reaffirmed that the United States will continue to restrict exports of advanced semiconductors to China to maintain the US' high-tech advantages at a Congress hearing that day.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told media in an interview published on the same day that the US is pressing allies to shoulder more of the burden in critical mineral supply chains, which he called "national security premium".

Washington's approach increasingly resembles what political scientists term "predatory hegemony", in which relationships are transactional and interdependence is a vulnerability to be weaponized. Such logic conflates power with influence. Actually true influence rests on credibility and the ability to promote shared interests. When the US pressures allies to curtail profitable trade — while offering only a symbolic pat on the back in return — it chips away at that credibility.

It also entrenches zero-sum thinking. Semiconductor controls have metastasized into a broader effort to contain technological advancement. The line between legitimate security concerns and commercial protectionism has blurred.

The US has spent the past years urging allies such as the Netherlands and Japan to align with its semiconductor equipment export controls. To a degree, they have. Yet both have done so cautiously — hedging against the economic blowback of losing access to the Chinese market.

This hesitation is a recognition of economic reality. China is a major node in the semiconductor ecosystem. Efforts to excise it from advanced manufacturing chains risk fragmenting the very system that made innovation possible in the first place.

The more Washington tightens controls, the stronger the incentive for Beijing to close the technological gap. China, faced with restrictions, has not stood still. It has doubled down on indigenous innovation, accelerated investment in its semiconductor ecosystem, and sought to stabilize supply chains through diversification.

By restricting access to advanced chips and tools, the US erodes the efficiencies that once benefited US companies and fragments the global supply chains, which could leave US companies with smaller markets and fewer opportunities for scale. US companies have suffered from such unilateral moves, including the arbitrary tariffs the US administration levied on other economies under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which the US Supreme Court ruled illegal in February.

Last month, a judge at the US Court of International Trade directed US Customs and Border Protection not to impose IEEPA-based tariffs during the liquidation process, implying that tariffs previously collected under the Act must be refunded. Consequently, US Customs initiated the first phase of these tariff refunds on Monday. As He Yongqian, spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Commerce, said on Thursday, the US tariff refunds mark a step toward correcting past mistakes, emphasizing that US importers and consumers ultimately bore the costs.

Despite that, Washington seems still intent on testing the limits of its unilateral practices: that it can reshape global supply chains by fiat.

In his speech at the opening of the 56th Annual World Trade Centers Association Global Business Forum in Philadelphia on Monday, China's ambassador to the US, Xie Feng, emphasized the need for openness and innovation, presenting China as a "harbor of stability" in an uncertain world.

Such positioning resonates with businesses that crave predictability. Multinationals do not thrive in an environment where rules shift with the political winds; they gravitate toward markets that offer scale, stability, and a degree of policy continuity.

If US policymakers truly intend to keep the US competitive, they should heed that message, and recognize that in an interconnected world, security and competitiveness are less about control than about convening cooperation.