Zimbabwe instituted some export restrictions on unrefined ore. They wished to encourage worldwide monetary funding into refineries within the nation to export refined merchandise to learn their individuals extra. And Indonesia did the identical factor for nickel.
There’s an enormous quantity of starvation in rising economies to enter these industrial sectors and hop on to the clean-energy transition and profit economically. You see this in India, Indonesia, Zambia, DRC, and Zimbabwe. A part of me wonders typically whether or not even in simply 5 or 10 years we’ll look again on this US-China provide chain debate, nervousness, paranoia, or no matter and it’ll all simply appear foolish, as a result of provide chains will look fully totally different.
Do you suppose clear tech will turn into as politicized because the semiconductor business is true now? Let me know your ideas at zeyi@technologyreview.com.
Meet up with China
1. A yr after the “CRISPR child” scientist He Jiankui was launched from jail, he’s quietly getting again to educational roles. In the meantime, gene-editing applied sciences within the West have advanced past what He did, prompting new questions. (New Yorker $)
- My colleague Antonio Regalado first broke the story of He Jiankui’s experiment on gene-edited infants again in 2018. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
2. On the huge auto present in Munich final week, German manufacturers like Volkswagen have been feeling the competitors from Chinese language electric-car firms. (Bloomberg $)
- The EV business has changed client web to turn into the brand new investor’s darling in China. (Wall Road Journal $)
3. Chinese language government-linked social media operations are utilizing image-making AIs to create visible content material, in accordance with a Microsoft report. (Washington Publish $)
4. Beijing has ordered central authorities officers to cease utilizing iPhones and different overseas smartphones at work so as to minimize the nation’s dependence on overseas applied sciences. (Wall Road Journal $)