China Shows Off Tech Resilience in Face of Trump Export Controls

Magiclab robots Photographer: Lucille Liu/Bloomberg Photo by Lucille Liu /via Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — As Donald Trump brandishes US export controls on technology as a bargaining chip to wrest supplies of rare earth magnets from Beijing, China is showcasing what it can do without the most advanced American semiconductors.

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On a government-organized trip this month to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, two of China’s richest provinces that spawned AI darling DeepSeek, authorities lined up a host of executives from technology companies to meet with journalists from Bloomberg News and other media outlets. The message was ultimately one of defiance: China’s technology sector still aims at world dominance despite US curbs.

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Take Magiclab Robotics Technology Co., a firm in the eastern city of Suzhou founded barely more than a year ago. Its president, Wu Changzheng, said it had independently developed more than 90% of the parts it uses to make humanoid robots. The rest consists of semiconductors and micro-controller units procured domestically and overseas, he said, adding that they don’t use US chips.

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“China doesn’t have many weak links in this industry,” Wu said, as he demonstrated a human-sized robot destined for factory floors. He brushed off Trump’s recent ban on US firms exporting semiconductor design software to China, saying his robots only require “standard chips.”

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Other entrepreneurs emphasized self-reliance over the five-day trip with companies spanning bio-pharmaceuticals, humanoid robotics, AI and autos — all sectors pivotal to President Xi Jinping’s manufacturing ambitions. Many in China’s business sector have rallied around Xi’s government in the face of Trump’s tariffs and expanding US export curbs. 

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Access to so many executives at once is typically difficult for foreign journalists in a country where media access is tightly regulated and company officials can be reluctant to speak freely for fear of reprisal.

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The trip exemplifies Beijing’s desire to boost global investor confidence in its $19 trillion economy, which has been plagued by a property crash, deflation and now the US’s highest tariffs in a century. Although DeepSeek’s surprise AI breakthrough earlier this year proved China can innovate with a limited supply of chips, Beijing still faces difficulty catching the US while being denied access to Nvidia Corp.’s most advanced semiconductors. 

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On the press tour, the Chinese government mostly presented firms that don’t require top-tier chips such as AISpeech Co, which makes in-car AI-powered audio and video tools. For companies pioneering autonomous driving models or artificial general intelligence — systems that possess human-level cognitive abilities — accessing the latest chips is likely to be far more important.

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Tiptoeing around sensitive topics like state subsidies, eight tech executives who addressed reporters throughout the trip downplayed the impact of a yearslong US campaign to curtail China’s technological ascent, emphasizing the country’s increased self-reliance as government officials listened attentively on the sidelines.