Washington's 6G club built on shifting sand: China Daily editorial

It seems the US administration likes to treat every major technological advance by China as a geopolitical emergency — This time the target is 6G.

China accounts for about 40 percent of global 6G patent applications, has completed the first phase of national 6G technology trials, and has accumulated more than 300 key technologies for the next generation of wireless telecommunications. Alarmed, Washington has unveiled another technology coalition, a more than 20-member clique to accelerate "secure" 6G networks. The strategy is familiar. Build an exclusive club, write the standards and fence China out. But behind the sound bites lies the same illusion that has plagued Washington's technology policy for years: geopolitics overrides economics.

The US administration hopes the new alliance will shape international 6G standards ahead of next year's World Radiocommunication Conference in Shanghai. Its claim that 6G will be dramatically different from 5G is less a technological assessment than a political "justification" for replaying its campaign against the Chinese tech company Huawei under a new label.

The problem for Washington is its 5G playbook delivered far less than it had promised. Billions were spent removing Huawei equipment from US networks, yet rural replacement projects remain incomplete. The campaign complicated deployment, increased costs and failed to halt Huawei's global technological development. Repeating the same strategy under the banner of 6G is unlikely to produce a different outcome.

And the belief that the US allies will sacrifice their commercial interests in pursuit of Washington's strategic goals is equally wishful thinking. The "Chip 4" initiative is an instructive precedent. The Republic of Korea joined only after insisting on conditions that avoided explicit restrictions on commercial ties with China, which accounts for roughly 40 percent of its semiconductor exports. The Netherlands' ASML has repeatedly resisted expanding restrictions, noting that US technology companies themselves derive a large share of their overseas revenue from the Chinese market.

The same contradictions will haunt the new 6G alliance. Germany, Japan, the ROK and the United Kingdom all maintain extensive commercial ties with China's telecommunications industry. Huawei and ZTE occupy key positions in the deeply integrated global supply chains that deliver substantial cost advantages over competitors. Asking allies to abandon those relationships in the name of "shared security" amounts to asking them to absorb substantial economic losses for dubious geopolitical gains.

Washington's campaign to reduce dependence on Chinese critical minerals reveals a similar disconnect between political will and economic reality. US President Donald Trump has designated January next year as the deadline for achieving independence from Chinese rare earths, tungsten and tantalum, while directing tens of billions of dollars toward domestic mining and processing. Yet the numbers tell a different story. US demand for common rare-earth magnets reached roughly 48,000 metric tons in 2025, while domestic supply stood at around 300 tons. The US has not produced tungsten since 2015 or tantalum since 1959, and industry experts acknowledge that rebuilding these supply chains will take years. And the more the US tries to separate these systems through political pressure, the more frictions it creates for its own companies and partners.

Technological leadership cannot be secured through alliances and sanctions alone. The emergence of China's Kimi K3 model is the latest proof of that. China continues to strengthen the industrial base that underpins its self-reliance in sci-tech innovation, with Chinese companies investing heavily in indigenous innovation.

The new 6G coalition may improve coordination among like-minded governments, but it will not diminish China's role in developing the technology's global standards or supply chains. Nor will it persuade US allies to disregard their own economic interests.

The US should invest in research, infrastructure and industrial competitiveness instead of forging a new containment coalition and imposing another round of restrictions. Technological innovation in this century will be achieved through cooperation rather than monopoly.