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From consumer gadgets to cars, China has shown a knack for producing cutting-edge technology. Yet the semiconductors that power the digital economy have proved trickier to master. That has been the source of much anxiety among its political and business elites in recent years. America’s decision in 2022 to halt exports to the country of its whizziest chips and chipmaking tools brought into stark relief the chokehold of China’s geopolitical rivals over the industry. In December last year China’s imports of the lithography machines used to imprint circuits onto silicon wafers surged by 450%, year on year, as local chipmakers raced to buy advanced kit from ASML, the Dutch market leader, before export restrictions by the Netherlands came into effect in January. It has also been