exported Authored 3 sources

The Chip War

The US has blacklisted 140 Chinese entities and blocked ASML semiconductor equipment sales; China counters with rare earth export restrictions as both sides invest hundreds of billions in domestic chip production in a race that defines military AI parity.

Sources (3)

Source	Publisher	Type	Date	Score
US Export Controls and China: Advanced Semiconductors Congressional Research Service	Congressional Research Service	government	2026-03	96%
Escalating US-China rare earth tensions signal determination to decouple Bruegel	Bruegel	think_tank	2026-04	92%
The Burn and the Choke: Why Semiconductor Controls Will Outlast China's Rare Earth Weapon War on the Rocks	War on the Rocks	think_tank	2026-05	90%

Full Script

Narration + Stagehand commands

Commands like [map.highlight] are Stagehand directives — they control the map renderer and pass through schema validation before any visual effect reaches the public output.

[map.view lat=35 lon=120 zoom=3.5]
[entity.propose id="country:china" type="country" name="China" lon=104.1954 lat=35.8617]
[entity.propose id="country:united_states" type="country" name="United States" lon=-95.7129 lat=37.0902]
[entity.propose id="country:taiwan" type="country" name="Taiwan" lon=120.9605 lat=23.6978]
[entity.propose id="country:netherlands" type="country" name="Netherlands" lon=5.2913 lat=52.1326]
[entity.propose id="city:beijing" type="city" name="Beijing" lon=116.4074 lat=39.9042]
[entity.propose id="city:shenzhen" type="city" name="Shenzhen" lon=114.0579 lat=22.5431]
[map.highlight ids="country:china" color="#E53E3E" opacity=0.5]
[map.highlight ids="country:united_states" color="#4299E1" opacity=0.4]
The United States has added one hundred forty Chinese entities to its export blacklist, cut off ASML lithography machine sales through the Netherlands, and barred Nvidia's most advanced AI chips from reaching Chinese buyers. This is the technology cold war — fought in nanometers.

[chat.say source="congress_semiconductor_export_controls"]
[map.arrow from="country:united_states" to="country:china" color="#E53E3E" label="chip export ban"]
[map.arrow from="country:netherlands" to="country:china" color="#E53E3E" label="ASML blocked"]
[map.highlight ids="country:taiwan" color="#F6AD55" opacity=0.6]
China's countermove: rare earth export restrictions targeting the seventeen elements essential for chips, defense systems, and electric vehicles — eighty percent of which flow through Chinese supply chains. In April 2026, Beijing escalated those restrictions as tensions over export controls intensified.

[scene.title kind=chapter eyebrow="Clio Short" title="The Chip War" subtitle="Burn and Choke"]
[scene.title kind=clear]
[map.view lat=30 lon=115 zoom=4]
[chat.say source="bruegel_rare_earth_decouple_2026"]
[chat.say source="warontherocks_burn_choke_2026"]
The US strategy is called burn and choke: burn China's current chip generation by cutting off equipment upgrades, while choking future capability by blocking access to advanced logic node technology. China is responding by investing over one hundred fifty billion dollars in domestic semiconductor production — but achieving sub-7nm yields without ASML extreme ultraviolet machines remains effectively impossible.

[map.spotlight id="city:shenzhen"]
The race is structural: the US can tighten controls faster than China can build domestic alternatives. But every year of delay China buys is a year of military AI capability catch-up. The nanometer gap is the geopolitical gap of this decade.

[scene.title kind=outro title="The Chip War" subtitle="Follow Clio for more."]