China’s export controls on metals used in making semiconductors are “just a start”, an influential trade policy adviser said on Wednesday, as it ramps up a tech fight with the US days before US treasury secretary Janet Yellen visits Beijing.

Shares in some Chinese metals companies rallied for a second session, with investors betting that higher prices on gallium and germanium, which Beijing’s export restrictions target, could boost revenues.

Germanium is used in high-speed computer chips and plastics, and in military applications such as night-vision devices as well as satellite imagery sensors. Gallium is used in building radars and radio communication devices, satellites and LEDs.

China’s abrupt announcement of controls from 1 August on exports of some gallium and germanium products, also used in electric vehicles and fibre-optic cables, has sent companies scrambling to secure supplies and bumped up prices.

Announced on the eve of US Independence Day and just before Yellen’s planned visit to Beijing from Thursday, analysts said it was clearly timed to send a message to the Biden administration, which has been targeting China’s chip sector and pushing allies such as Japan and Netherlands to follow suit.

China’s move has also raised concerns on whether restrictions on rare earth exports could follow, they said, pointing to how it curbed shipments 12 years ago in a dispute with Japan. China is the world’s biggest producer of rare earths, a group of metals used in EVs and military equipment.

Tech fight

Analysts have described Monday’s move as China’s second, and so far the biggest, countermeasure in the long-running US-China tech fight, coming after it banned some key domestic industries from purchasing from US memory chip maker Micron in May.

On Wednesday, former vice commerce minister Wei Jianguo told the China Daily newspaper that countries should brace for more should they continue to pressure China, describing the controls as a “well-thought-out heavy punch” and “just a start”.

“If restrictions targeting China’s high-technology sector continue then countermeasures will escalate,” added Wei, who served as vice commerce minister in 2003-2008 and is now the vice chairman of state-backed think-tank China Centre for International Economic Exchanges.

Read: US, the Netherlands set to hit China’s chip makers with one-two punch

The Global Times state media tabloid, in a separate editorial published late on Tuesday, said that it was a “practical way” of telling the US and its allies that their efforts to curb China from procuring more advanced technology was a “miscalculation”.

The Chinese commerce ministry did not respond to a request for further comment.

Washington is considering new restrictions on the shipment of hi-tech microchips to China, following a series of curbs over the past few years.

The US and the Netherlands are also expected to further restrict sales of chip-making equipment to China, part of efforts to prevent their technology from being used by China’s military.

A day after China unveiled the curbs, Chinese President Xi Jinping repeated a call for “stable and smooth functioning of regional industrial and supply chains” in a virtual address to leaders attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, according to state media reports.

Shares in Chinese metals companies such as Yunnan Lincang Xinyuan Germanium Industry and Yunnan Chihong Zinc & Germanium surged for a second session on Wednesday, with local media reporting that a rise in germanium prices would boost revenue growth for the firms.

Read: US is poised to restrict China’s access to cloud services

Gallium at 99.99% purity in China was trading at C¥1 775/kg on Tuesday, unchanged day on day, but up 6% week on week and 4% year on year, Shanghai Metal Exchange Market data on Refinitiv Eikon showed. It was, however, 46% lower from the same period a year ago.

China’s germanium ingot was priced at C¥9 150/kg on Tuesday, also flat on the day and on the week, Refinitiv data showed. It was down 4% month on month and up 4.6% year on year. — Brenda Goh, with Amy Lv, (c) 2023 Reuters