china tarriffs on lcd monitors for sale

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday backed off his Sept. 1 deadline for 10% tariffs on remaining Chinese imports, delaying duties on cellphones, laptops and other consumer goods, in the hopes of blunting their impact on U.S. holiday sales.

The delay which, affects about half of the $300 billion target list of Chinese goods - along with news of renewed trade discussions between U.S. and Chinese officials - sent stocks sharply higher and drew cautious relief from retailers and technology groups.

Trump’s 10% tariffs will be effective from Dec. 15 for thousands of products including clothing and footwear, possibly buttressing the holiday selling season from some of the fallout from the protracted trade spat between the world’s two largest economies.

“We’re doing this for Christmas season, just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. customers,” Trump told reporters in New Jersey. “Just in case they might have an impact on people, what we’ve done is we’ve delayed it so that they won’t be relevant to the Christmas shopping season.”

The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office announced the decision just minutes after China’s Ministry of Commerce said Vice Premier Liu He conducted a phone call with U.S. trade officials.

Liu agreed with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to speak again by phone within the next two weeks, the ministry said.

The delay in tariffs on a substantial portion of a $300 billion list of remaining Chinese imports sent U.S. stocks surging, after steep losses in the past week, with the Standard & Poor"s 500up 1.5% and the Nasdaq Compositegaining nearly 2%.

Shares of market bellwether Apple Incsoared 4.2% on news that its core iPhone, tablet and laptop computer products would be spared from tariffs for the time being.

But the Trump administration still plans to impose 10% tariffs on thousands of Chinese food, clothing and other consumer electronics products beginning Sept. 1.

Among these are Chinese-made smartwatches from Apple and Fitbit, smart speakers from Amazon.com Inc, Googleand Apple, and Bluetooth headphones and other devices, a category estimated at $17.9 billion last year by the Consumer Technology Association.

Flat screen televisions from China, a category worth $4.5 billion, also will face 10% tariffs on Sept. 1 after being spared from Trump’s first round of tariffs more than a year ago.

A trade group representative said USTR informed them that it opted to delay tariffs on items where China supplies more than 75 percent of total U.S. imports. Product categories where China supplies less than 75 percent will still face tariffs on Sept. 1, the representative said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information was not publicly released.

Based on a Reuters analysis, the delay could extend to around half of the $300 billion list of remaining Chinese imports. Chinese imports subject to the tariffs on Dec. 15 totaled about $156 billion last year, according U.S. Census bureau data.FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with China"s President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

While most retailers would have stocked their holiday merchandise before the September deadline, some might have faced the tariffs for fill-in orders late in the holiday shopping season.

Still, the Retail Industry Leaders Association said “removing some products from the list and delaying additional 10% tariffs on other products, such as toys, consumer electronics, apparel and footwear, until Dec. 15 is welcome news as it will mitigate some pain for consumers through the holiday season.”

The Consumer Technology Association applauded the delay on some items, but added: “Next month, we’ll begin to pay more for some of our favorite tech devices – including TVs, smart speakers and desktop computers. The administration should permanently remove these harmful tariffs and find another way to hold China accountable for its unfair trading practices.”

The 21-page-list of products that will not get hit with tariffs until December also includes baby monitors and strollers, microwaves, instant print cameras, doorbells, high chairs, musical instruments, ketchup dispensers, baby diapers, fireworks, sleeping bags, nativity scenes, fishing reels, paint rollers and food products.

A separate group of products will be removed from the tariff list altogether, the USTR said, “based on health, safety, national security and other factors.” It did not immediately identify these items.

Trump announced the Sept. 1 tariffs less than two weeks ago, blaming China for not following through on promises to buy more American agricultural products during talks in Shanghai at the end of July. That move was met with a drop in China’s yuan currency a few days later, prompting the Trump administration to declare Beijing a currency manipulator and sending markets tumbling for several days last week.

In a sign the administration may be expecting something in return, Trump tweeted on Tuesday: “As usual, China said they were going to be buying ‘big’ from our great American Farmers. So far they have not done what they said. Maybe this will be different!” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s tariff delay comes amid growing concerns about a global economic slowdown. Goldman Sachs said on Sunday fears of the U.S.-China trade war leading to a recession were increasing and Goldman no longer expects a trade deal between the two countries before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Trump has also personally criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping for failing to do more to stem sales of the synthetic opioid fentanyl amid an opioid overdosing crisis in the United States.

Reporting by David Shepardson, David Lawder, Makini Brice and Susan Heavey in Washington; additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Morristown, New Jersey; Writing by David Lawder; editing by Tim Ahmann, Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman

All the information, data and documents are provided by ETCN only for your reference. ETCN promises to collect and edit them in due care but shall not be liable for their correction and accuracy. In case of any discrepancy, official versions and interpretations shall prevail.

All the information, data and documents are provided by ETCN only for your reference. ETCN promises to collect and edit them in due care but shall not be liable for their correction and accuracy. In case of any discrepancy, official versions and interpretations shall prevail.

Approximately 90 percent of all LCD modules are manufactured in mainland China. The remaining 10 percent are manufactured primarily between Japan and Taiwan, and some in Korea. China’s clear stronghold in manufacturing, coupled with its large volume of imports to the U.S., mean these tariffs will definitely impact the industry.

The US government said the tariffs where created in response to China’s Unfair Trade Practices. Specifically, the Section 301 investigation by the USTR revealed:

China uses joint venture requirements, foreign investment restrictions, and administrative review and licensing processes to require or pressure technology transfer from U.S. companies.

China directs and unfairly facilitates the systematic investment in, and acquisition of, U.S. companies and assets to generate large-scale technology transfer.

China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into U.S. commercial computer networks to gain unauthorized access to commercially valuable business information.

Unfortunately, while the USTR works to rectify inequities in these unfair practices, many American manufacturers will have to pay higher prices for their components. That works its way up the supply chain and can ultimately lead to higher prices for American consumers.

The USITC (Office of Tariff Affairs and Trade Agreements) is responsible for publishing the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States Annotated (HTSA). The HTSA provides the applicable tariff rates and statistical categories for all merchandise imported into the United States; it is based on the international Harmonized System, the global system of nomenclature that is used to describe most world trade in goods. Although the USITC publishes and maintains the HTSA in its various forms, Customs and Border Protection is the only agency that can provide legally binding advice or rulings on classification of imports.

Many people are asking about using alternate HTC codes with lower burden implications. Unfortunately, these codes are abundant and complicated. There should be exactly one code that properly categorizes your product.

When a display is designed and built for a single application, it may be more appropriate to use a harmonized tariff code for the end-product instead of the display component. An LCD in a cellphone is a good example of this.

A popular way to do this is to reevaluate your current HTC codes and make sure they’re correct. This can be done with in-house council or the use of a consultant specializing in this area of the government. Ultimately, however, you need get a ruling from the government to be certain you are using the correct code.

Some companies are searching for key suppliers outside of the China region and working towards qualifications of those factories. Others are exploring having key components of the purchased assembly outsourced outside of China so it still satisfies the correct definition of Country of Origin. Again, violating these definitions can lead to costly fines and penalties.

May 10thsees the US-China trade dispute escalating yet again as the US continues to hike tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese imports, going from 10% to 25%.TrendForcepoints out that TVs , monitors, notebooks and other display products were not among the US$250 billion worth of goods hit by the 25% tariffs, thus the current impact on panels and the display industry remains to be fairly limited.

Yet tensions amid the US-China trade war has intensified. China has swiftly responded in retaliation, imposing 5%-25% punitive tariffs of its own on US$60 billion worth of goods on May 13th, Taipei Time. Likewise, the US has released its 4thlist of tariffs, including US$325 billion worth of China exports among the items to suffer 25% tariffs. Notebooks, which make up a sizeable proportion of imports in revenue, are especially deserving of close attention.

The significance of notebook PCs lies in 3 areas, and one should note that not only are the US and China both harmed by the high tariffs, but Taiwan is also caught up in the storm. First of all, nearly 90% of notebook PCs imported to the US are assembled in China, with Chongqing as its main industrial city for these products. Lacking other production bases of similar scale with highly integrated supply chains for flexible procurement, China will suffer a terrible hit in exports should punitive tariffs begin to fly.

Secondly, the North American notebook PC market is highly reliant on domestic brands in the US. According to TrendForce"s global shipment statistics for notebook PC brands 2018, American brands HP, Dell and Apple"s market shares combined comprised up to 66% of the entire North American market. Looking at it from another angle, shipments for the North American market took up 40~50% of total shipments and formed the main source of business for each of the three giants. If tariffs are imposed on notebook PCs, American brands will begin to lose competitive power due to elevated costs from tariffs, impacting both business and profits. If the tariffs reflect themselves in the end prices for notebook PCs, then there will be good reason to worry whether the North American market, which comprises up to a third of global notebook PC shipments,will suffer from a stifled sales momentum. Should that come to pass, it shall be mayday for both American notebook PC brands and the global notebook market.

Lastly, Taiwan"s suppliers have long accumulated competitive power in and concentrated on notebook PC manufacturing. The three aforementioned American brands all depend 90% on Taiwan"s suppliers. If punitive tariffs become unavoidable, Quanta, Compal and Wistron may become another center of impact in this disaster . Some notebook PC ODMs have expanded their production capacities in Vietnam, Taiwan and other locations outside China since 2018 in an attempt to minimize the potential impacts from tariffs. Although the change in places of production may circumvent the tariffs, notebook PC supply chains have long been situated in China. Shipping the relevant upstream components to new plants overseas of China will incur additional fees and time costs, thus leading to an inevitable overall increase in cost despite the tariff work-around.

In TV markets, having TVs made in Mexico and shipped to America for sale have always been the business model for years under considerations of tariff-related incentives and logistic costs. Taking the current top four TV brands by market share for example, we see that Samsung and LG have enormous production capacities in Mexico, allowing the two Korean manufacturers to circumvent the towering tariffs on China imports with ease, thanks to the additional resources at hand.

In contrast, Chinese brand TCL, catapulted by sharp price strategies, and Vizio are still highly reliant on China manufacturers for production. Although TCL possesses some capacity in Mexico, it is only enough for 50% of US demand. That is to say, once TVs are included in the list of products to suffer punitive tariffs, a reshuffling of brands by brand strength and market shares shall ensue.

The United States is delaying tariffs on Chinese-made cellphones, laptop computers and other items and removing other Chinese imports from its target list altogether in a move that triggered a rally on Wall Street.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Tuesday that it is still planning to go ahead with 10% tariffs on about $300 billion in Chinese imports, extending the import taxes on just about everything China ships to the United States in a dispute over Beijing’s aggressive trade policies. Most of the levies are scheduled to kick in Sept. 1.

But the agency says it would delay the tariffs to Dec. 15 on some goods, including cellphones, laptop computers, video game consoles, some toys, computer monitors, shoes and clothing. And it’s removing other items from the list based “on health, safety, national security and other factors.”

The news sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 460 points in midmorning trading. Shares of Apple, Mattel and shoe brand Steve Madden shot up on the news.

Separately, China’s Ministry of Commerce reported that top Chinese negotiators spoke by phone with their U.S. counterparts, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and plan to talk again in two weeks.

Together, the developments revived optimism that the world’s two biggest economies can make progress toward resolving a trade dispute that has rattled financial markets for more than a year and clouded prospects for the global economy.

The U.S. and China are fighting over American allegations that Beijing steals trade secrets and forces foreign companies to hand over technology. The tactics are part of China’s drive to become a world leader in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and electric cars.

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The merchandise in question is the Insignia LCD HD televisions, models NS-42L780A12, NS-46L780A12, and NS-55L780A12, with 42-inch, 46-inch, and 55-inch diagonal screen sizes, respectively. All models incorporate the following: an NTSC analog tuner, an ATSC Clear-QAM digital tuner, three HDMI inputs, one component video input, one composite video input, one PC/VGA input, and one 3.5 mm PC audio input. In addition, these televisions have the capability, when a USB flash drive is inserted in the USB port, to reproduce video slideshows of JPEG pictures.

In its condition as imported, these LCD televisions will be packaged for retail sale with the following: a tabletop stand, a remote control, a component video cable, a cleaning cloth, and a quick-start guide. This combination is considered a set for tariff classification purposes, with the televisions imparting the essential character.

The applicable subheading for these televisions will be 8528.72.6400, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which provides for Monitors and projectors, not incorporating television reception apparatus . . . Reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus: Other, color: With a flat panel screen: Incorporating video recording or reproducing apparatus: Other. The rate of duty will be 3.9 percent ad valorem.

Duty rates are provided for your convenience and are subject to change. The text of the most recent HTSUS and the accompanying duty rates are provided on World Wide Web at http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/.

A copy of the ruling or the control number indicated above should be provided with the entry documents filed at the time this merchandise is imported. If you have any questions regarding the ruling, contact National Import Specialist Lisa Cariello at (646) 733-3014.

The merchandise under consideration is the Dynex LCD televisions, models DX-32L221A12 and DX-40L260A12, with 32-inch and 40-inch diagonal screen sizes, respectively. These HD LCD televisions contain a tuner that supports NTSC, ATSC, 8-VSB, and Clear-QAM. In addition, both models feature two HDMI inputs, one component video input, one composite video input, one PC/VGA input, one 3.5 mm PC audio input and one HDMI/DVI input. These televisions also include a USB port that can be used for firmware upgrading, but cannot record or reproduce video.

In its condition as imported, these LCD televisions will be packaged for retail sale with the following: a tabletop stand, a remote control, an AC power cord, a composite video cable, and a user’s guide. This combination is considered a set for tariff classification purposes, with the televisions imparting the essential character.

In your submission you suggest classification of the Dynex televisions in subheading 8528.72.6400, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which provides for Monitors and projectors, not incorporating television reception apparatus; reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus: Reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus: Other, color: With a flat panel screen: Incorporating video recording or reproducing apparatus: Other. However, these televisions do not incorporate video recording or reproducing apparatus and therefore are not classifiable in subheading 8528.72.6400, HTSUS.

The applicable subheading for these televisions will be 8528.72.7250, HTSUS, which provides for "Monitors and projectors, not incorporating television reception apparatus; reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus: Reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus: Other, color: With a flat panel screen: Other: Other: LCD-type (direct view)." The rate of duty will be 5 percent ad valorem.

Duty rates are provided for your convenience and are subject to change. The text of the most recent HTSUS and the accompanying duty rates are provided on World Wide Web at http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/.

A copy of the ruling or the control number indicated above should be provided with the entry documents filed at the time this merchandise is imported. If you have any questions regarding the ruling, contact National Import Specialist Lisa Cariello at (646) 733-3014.

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Otherwise, without such Approval, even if the goods have arrived at the China Customs, they will not be cleared normally, and the goods will be detained in the port till get such approval, or even be returned, causing you huge losses.

The US is rapidly ramping up efforts to try to hobble China"s progress in the semiconductor industry - vital for everything from smartphones to weapons of war.

In October, Washington announced some of the broadest export controls yet - requiring licences for companies exporting chips to China using US tools or software, no matter where they"re made in the world.

Washington"s measures also prevent US citizens and green card holders from working for certain Chinese chip companies. Green card holders are US permanent residents who have the right to work in the country.

Alan Estevez, undersecretary at the US Commerce Department announced the rules, saying his intention was to ensure the US was doing everything it could to prevent "sensitive technologies with military applications" from being acquired by China.

Countries in Asia that produce chips - such as Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea - have raised concerns about how this bitter battle is affecting the global supply chain.

The US restrictions have broad implications. Last week, UK-based computer chip designer Arm confirmed that it was not selling its most advanced designs to Chinese firms including tech giant Alibaba because of US and UK controls.

China has filed a complaint against the US with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over its export controls on semiconductors and other related technology.

In its WTO filing, China alleged that the US is abusing export controls to maintain "its leadership in science, technology, engineering and manufacturing sectors".

US Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Thea Kendler said "US national security interests require that we act decisively to deny access to advanced technologies."

The complaint specifies that the US has imposed restrictions on the export of approximately 2,800 Chinese goods, but only 1,800 of these were allowed under international trade rules.

Earlier this month, the WTO ruled that US tariffs on steel and aluminium that were imposed by the US under former President Donald Trump violated global trade rules.

Japan and the Netherlands could possibly impose export controls on China - limiting the ability of Japanese and Dutch companies to sell advanced products to the Chinese market.

On Monday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the US had discussions with the two major suppliers of chip making equipment around adopting similar US controls on Beijing.

"I"m not going to get ahead of any announcements," Mr Sullivan told reporters. "I will just say that we are very pleased with the candour, the substance and the intensity of the discussions."

Mr Wennink said that the Dutch government, in response to US pressure, had already stopped ASML from selling its most advanced lithography machines to China since 2019.

For instance, Apple"s new laptop will contain chips from industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company measuring 3 nanometres. To put that into perspective - a human hair measures roughly 50,000 to 100,000 nanometres.

Analysts say US controls could put China further behind other chip producing countries, even though Beijing has openly said it wants to prioritise the manufacture of semiconductors and become a superpower in the sector.

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U.S. President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an executive order on the economy at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, 2021.Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images

In the summer of 2020, massive wildfires erupted in California and Oregon. Forest fires are a yearly occurrence in the region. Yet amid devastation and chaos, the thousands of firefighters battling the flames quickly noticed that something was different from other years. Controlled burning, a crucial tool to prevent wildfires, had not taken place during the spring. Something else was amiss: There were no drones available to monitor how quickly the flames were spreading. If firefighters had known why there had been no controlled burns and why drones were missing, they would probably have been surprised. It had nothing to do with forests, environmental policies, or perennial budget cuts. It was all about China.

The previous year, the Trump administration had ordered U.S. government agencies to stop using more than 800 drones that previously helped to monitor fires and to conduct controlled burns across the country. The drones worked perfectly well, but they were made by DJI, a Chinese company. Using unmanned aircraft from DJI is nothing special: The firm supplies more than 70 percent of the world’s civilian drones. However, the administration worried that the drones might covertly send sensitive information to China, allowing Beijing to see exactly what the drones could see.

DJI had vigorously denied these claims and taken steps to relocate production to the United States. Staff from the U.S. Interior Department had warned that halting controlled burning would likely result in catastrophic wildfires. Yet the administration had chosen to ignore these warnings and to go even further with its China-proofing strategy: Washington also halted the acquisition of 17 high-tech systems, called Ignis, which help to start controlled fires. The technology was American. Several years earlier, the U.S. government had added Ignis to a top list of “Made in America” innovations. However, there was a catch: The Ignis systems include Chinese-made components. For the administration, this was too much of a risk to take.

With drones grounded and Ignis systems missing, the U.S. Office of Wildland Fire was able to carry out only a quarter of the controlled-burning operations that it had arranged to undertake in 2020. The backup plan would have been to use aircraft manned by firefighters, but this option was quickly abandoned: It imperiled human lives when there was a risk-free alternative.

The lack of drones was a tangible illustration of the ripple effects of the U.S.-China conflict. It came with catastrophic consequences. It is unlikely that using drones would have prevented the fires, which were due to an unusual combination of strong winds and extreme heat. However, perhaps it could have helped to lower the death toll (nearly 40 people died) and to reduce the scope of the damage (which reached $19 billion in California alone). Was mitigation of unsubstantiated risks that China may use the drones to spy on U.S. soil worth such a high price? For Washington, the answer was apparently a clear yes.

The new FLIR C360 Muve gas detector is seen on a DJI Matrice 210 drone during a demonstration at the Los Angeles Fire Department ahead of DJI"s AirWorks conference in Los Angeles.

The new FLIR C360 Muve gas detector is seen on a DJI Matrice 210 drone during a demonstration at the Los Angeles Fire Department ahead of DJI’s AirWorks conference in Los Angeles on Sept. 23, 2019. ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Washington’s concerns around China’s technological rise—and the industrial espionage and cybertheft that go with it—date back to the early 2000s. They came to the fore in 2018, when the U.S. trade representative issued a lengthy report summarizing China’s perceived offenses against the United States. The document highlighted Washington’s realization that the Chinese economy is not market-driven, but fully state-led. According to the U.S. government, China’s economic strategy focuses on attracting foreign firms, stealing their technology, and indigenizing it before forcing the companies out of the Chinese market. In the view of U.S. policymakers, this process involves only a few, well-documented steps.

First, the Chinese government forces global companies that want to gain access to China’s market to form joint ventures with Chinese firms. These local companies have one single objective: siphoning the technological secrets of their foreign counterparts. This is a well-known issue; as the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive put it, “Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.” (To be fair, the United States is probably not far behind.) Alternatively, China may also force Western firms to sell their know-how to their Chinese partners at ridiculously low prices.

Once Beijing has gathered the technology it is looking for, Chinese companies replicate it. This is the famous moment when foreign businesses realize that a factory closely resembling their own has just opened down the road. Strangely, the Chinese plant happens to manufacture exact replicas of the Western products. Washington believes that Beijing eventually plans to kick foreign companies out of China. This makes sense, in theory: Once Chinese companies have gotten hold of foreign technology, Beijing may see little reason to let competing foreign firms remain in its domestic market.

These unfair practices are widely acknowledged, but they form only one aspect of U.S. concerns toward China. In recent years, the U.S. government has also become increasingly worried that letting Chinese technological companies operate on U.S. soil or having U.S. government agencies use Chinese-made technology puts national security at risk. This was the reasoning behind the grounding of the controlled-burning drones on the West Coast. The issue is far from limited to drones, however. The argument goes that all of China’s high-tech companies have ties to the Chinese state and may be compelled to secretly gather data on their Western consumers.

On paper, these concerns appear valid. Although there are no public records of such an occurrence, China’s national security law may force Chinese companies that operate in the United States to collect information on American citizens or businesses and to send these data back to Beijing. Chinese firms have no choice but to cooperate with Beijing; according to China’s regulations, the companies have no right to appeal such requests. Many U.S. firms already take these issues seriously. Technological supplies to Google and Facebook, for instance, have to be China-proof.

From this perspective, Chinese-made cellphone towers installed near government buildings, such as federal offices or military bases, pose an especially acute threat. This is the crux of the debate around Beijing’s participation to the global rollout of 5G telecommunications networks. Defense hawks believe that China could use the infrastructure to spy on sensitive installations. China’s backers are quick to point out that these concerns are both theoretical and unsubstantiated. However, there are precedents: On two separate occasions, China was accused of spying on the Ethiopian headquarters of the African Union. Beijing and the Chinese companies that are suspected of having been involved have denied the accusations, which the African Union has also—albeit inexplicably—downplayed.

The U.S. security establishment’s worst-case scenario looks even more worrying. Some experts fear that installing Chinese-made telecommunications equipment on U.S. soil may enable Beijing to pull the plug on America’s phone or Internet networks. Most analysts believe that this is not really feasible. At any rate, this sounds unlikely: China’s growth would tank if the U.S. economy crashed. If China took such an extreme step, Beijing’s long-term ability to convince countries to install Chinese telecommunications equipment would also suffer. However, if the United States and China became embroiled in a direct military conflict, for instance over Taiwan, Beijing would have nothing to lose.

Nowadays, the bipartisan view in Washington’s corridors of power is that China is rolling out a revamped version of economic imperialism, just like Great Britain in the 19th century or Japan after World War II. To retain its role as the world’s sole superpower, Washington believes that it has to stop Beijing in its tracks. Some Americans go as far as seeing the U.S.-China clash as a generational one, on a par with conflicts against the former Soviet Union or Islamist terror. The reality may be less dramatic. The conflict between the United States and China is one for economic dominance between an incumbent economic superpower and its rising challenger.

In this economic war, the United States is unsurprisingly keen to put all forms of economic coercion to good use. The Trump administration imposed tariffs on $360 billion of U.S. imports from China; President Joe Biden has made it clear he is not lifting these. The United States has also sanctioned Chinese individuals linked to human-rights abuses against both the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. In the financial sphere, U.S. lawmakers are pondering whether to delist more than $1 trillion worth of shares of Chinese companies on U.S. stock exchanges. Congress is also considering barring the Thrift Savings Plan, which manages the pensions of millions of federal government employees, from investing in Chinese companies.

The Chinese economy, however, has grown far too big for Washington to sanction Beijing with its usual toolkit. The United States has probably explored all the potential trade tools—mainly tariffs—that it can use against China. Financial sanctions appear highly unlikely; targeting the world’s second-largest economy with financial sanctions would almost certainly backfire. The United States needs something else to advance its interests against China. Washington has therefore focused its efforts on the technology sector.

A worker handles copper lead frames at Renesas Electronics, a semiconductor manufacturer, in Beijing on May 14, 2020.NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images

In 2016, the Chinese leadership announced that it planned to spend $150 billion over 10 years to develop a Chinese semiconductor industry. The U.S.-China conflict had not started in earnest by then, but Beijing’s announcement raised alarm bells across the U.S. defense establishment. Experts warned that China’s plan to beef up its presence in the semiconductor sector put U.S. national security at risk: In a few decades, Chinese firms could become able to manufacture microchips more advanced than the United States’. As a result, China’s missiles, lasers, or air defense systems could become the most sophisticated in the world.

Semiconductors are the Achilles’ heel of the Chinese economy. Beijing buys more than $300 billion of foreign-made semiconductors every year, making computer chips China’s largest import, far above oil. This reflects the fact that Chinese factories import 85 percent of the microchips they need to build electronic goods.34 Most of these semiconductors are manufactured using U.S. technology. For Washington, this makes export controls a seemingly ideal tool to deprive Beijing of U.S. innovation and know-how. Such restrictions function in a similar fashion to financial sanctions: They seek to curb adversaries’ access to U.S.-made staples—the greenback for financial sanctions or computer chip technology for export controls—that have become so crucial that few countries can do without them.

Washington knows that it has a massive trump card to play in the semiconductor sector: Virtually every microchip around the world has some link to the United States, be it because it was designed with U.S.-made software, produced using U.S.-made equipment, or inspected with U.S.-made tools. This is not surprising: The United States is the birthplace of the semiconductor industry. The sector was born in the 1950s to meet the growing tech needs of the U.S. military as it started to confront the former Soviet Union. Around 70 years later, U.S. microchip firms have a market capitalization of around $1 trillion. Simply put, the United States dominates the field.

U.S. firms manufacture only around 10 percent of the computer chips sold across the world. The world’s leading microchip foundries (as semiconductor assembly lines are called) are located in Asia, mainly in Taiwan and South Korea. However, a handful of U.S. companies control all of the higher, upstream echelons of the supply chain. Given the United States’ dominance over the microchip sector, Washington knows that measures curbing China’s access to U.S. semiconductor technology have every chance to deal a blow to Beijing’s technological ambitions.

In 2018, Congress started to put this strategy into practice, quietly adopting a flurry of regulations meant to cut China’s access to U.S. know-how. In May 2019, the Trump administration started to impose export controls on Huawei, China’s telecommunications giant, sending shockwaves through the global technology sector. Washington took these restrictions a step further in May 2020, when the administration announced that it was barring all microchip manufacturers from forging chips for Huawei, anywhere across the world, if they used U.S. technology. Three months later, the Commerce Department further tightened the rules to ban all microchip sales to Huawei. In the remainder of the year, the administration broadened the restrictions to target dozens of other Chinese firms; these included SMIC, China’s largest maker of microchips.

These measures appeared severe at the time, but they were only the first steps. In October, the Biden administration dealt an even more severe blow to China’s technological sector: Instead of targeting only high-profile Chinese firms, Washington clamped down on all exports of advanced microchips and semiconductor-making tools to China. U.S. citizens were also warned that without explicit (and unlikely) U.S. government approval, they are breaking U.S. law if they choose to work for Chinese technology firms.

In many ways, these measures closely resemble financial sanctions. The difference is that instead of targeting global companies using the dollar, Washington is applying coercive measures to firms using U.S. technology, no matter whether these firms are American or foreign. Like financial sanctions, these export regulations seek to force countries and companies to choose sides between the United States and the sanctioned country—in this case China. The United States is betting that the world’s largest microchip producers, such as South Korea’s Samsung or Taiwan’s MediaTek and TSMC, will side with it and stop working with Chinese companies. Alternatively, these foreign firms could maintain ties to China, but this would come at a high price: Using U.S. technology to design or manufacture microchips for Chinese firms has become impossible. Continuing to serve the Chinese market now entails rebuilding entire, U.S.-proof manufacturing lines for Chinese customers at a cost of several billion dollars.

The global ripple effects of export controls against Chinese technological firms have proved colossal, probably even more than the Commerce Department expected. Huawei had to stop production at a number of its facilities, as many of them relied on U.S.-made equipment. Faced with high levels of uncertainty, SMIC slashed spending and investment plans. Outside China, the managers of microchip foundries frantically started to check whether their equipment used U.S. technology. If this was the case, working with dozens of firms from China, the world’s largest importer of semiconductors, had become illegal.

In some rare instances, the production lines of global tech firms did not rely on U.S. technology. In theory, this shielded these companies from U.S. measures. However, Washington intended to see to it that all Western companies ditched their contracts with Beijing—a lesson the Netherlands’ ASML, which builds machines capable of carving out microchips, learned the hard way. The U.S. administration pressed the Dutch government hard to ensure that it would forbid ASML from working with Chinese companies. The Netherlands eventually gave in to U.S. pressure and revoked ASML’s export license to China.

For Beijing, this was a sure sign of problems to come: The Dutch firm is the only company in the world that masters the extreme ultraviolet technology that SMIC needs to manufacture highly advanced chips. For the Dutch company, this development was bad news, too. The equipment cost more than $20 billion to develop, and the fast-growing Chinese market was one of the most promising. ASML’s CEO later hinted that the company was looking at making its supply chains fully U.S.-proof.

Export controls against Huawei were not meant to have a domestic impact, but they also had ripple effects on U.S. soil. Rural cellphone and Internet providers had long understood that they were in trouble. The cheap Huawei gear they had bought to connect remote and sparsely populated places to the Internet abruptly stopped receiving crucial software updates or replacement parts from U.S. firms. This was a death sentence: Without these updates and spare parts, Huawei cellphone towers and Internet networks will, over time, simply stop working.

On the other side of the Pacific, Beijing knows that Washington’s new export measures will pose a host of new problems to address. For the Chinese leadership, semiconductors are especially important in two areas: the manufacturing of cellphones and the roll-out of 5G networks on Chinese soil. The United States does not seem intent on curbing China’s ability to manufacture cheap, basic cellphones, as these do not pose a security threat to the United States; the White House has extended export licenses to a number of U.S. and foreign companies so they can continue to deal with Huawei for such unsophisticated products.

However, Washington appears keen to apply export controls to their fullest extent when it comes to highly advanced, ultrasmall chips. For China, this will be a major headache in the coming years. High-tech microchips are a crucial component of much-touted 5G telecommunications networks. Washington’s willingness to restrict Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors will likely hamper China’s development of 5G infrastructure. The Chinese leadership will probably be able to prioritize the roll-out of 5G in a few high-profile cities and regions. However, the rest of the country will probably have to wait for longer than expected to get access to the innovations that fifth-generation networks enable, such as self-driven vehicles or smart electric grids.

Such ripple effects, both in China and the United States, are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. The consequences of export controls restricting China’s access to U.S. technology will be witnessed only over several decades. Innovation tends to come with long-term industrial investments that involve meticulously arranged supply chains and manufacturing processes. U.S. export controls will alter these plans.

The world’s leading microchip manufacturers, including Taiwan’s TSMC (which controls around half of the global production capacity) and South Korea’s Samsung (which specializes in the most advanced microchips), are already redesigning their global supply chains with U.S. export controls in mind. TSMC plans to open a giant, $12 billion foundry in Arizona by 2024; the U.S.-subsidized plant will probably only serve the U.S. market, while other TSMC factories will continue to do business with Chinese firms. Samsung’s latest projects also reflect this new reality: The South Korean firm plans to build two foundries in the coming years, one in Texas for $17 billion and another one in Xian, in central China, for $15 billion.

Even if U.S.-China tensions were to recede, which appears highly unlikely, the long-term nature of such massive investment programs means that the effects of export controls will prove both long-lasting and hard to unwind. The Sino-American conflict over technology will take place across several decades, probably well beyond 2050. Export controls look set to form the bulk of Washington’s arsenal to defend U.S. interests, especially in the technological sector. The measures illustrate the growing shift toward an environment where technological leadership is the main driver of political influence and economic power, as well as a crucial determinant of military might.

Glass substrate with ITO electrodes. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes that will appear when the LCD is switched ON. Vertical ridges etched on the surface are smooth.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky and less energy-efficient cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. The phosphors used in CRTs make them vulnerable to image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs do not have this weakness, but are still susceptible to image persistence.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, often made of Indium-Tin oxide (ITO) and two polarizing filters (parallel and perpendicular polarizers), the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. Without the liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer. Before an electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid-crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces of electrodes. In a twisted nematic (TN) device, the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. This induces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

The chemical formula of the liquid crystals used in LCDs may vary. Formulas may be patented.Sharp Corporation. The patent that covered that specific mixture expired.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

LCD in a Texas Instruments calculator with top polarizer removed from device and placed on top, such that the top and bottom polarizers are perpendicular. As a result, the colors are inverted.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

The origins and the complex history of liquid-crystal displays from the perspective of an insider during the early days were described by Joseph A. Castellano in Liquid Gold: The Story of Liquid Crystal Displays and the Creation of an Industry.IEEE History Center.Peter J. Wild, can be found at the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.

In 1888,Friedrich Reinitzer (1858–1927) discovered the liquid crystalline nature of cholesterol extracted from carrots (that is, two melting points and generation of colors) and published his findings at a meeting of the Vienna Chemical Society on May 3, 1888 (F. Reinitzer: Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Cholesterins, Monatshefte für Chemie (Wien) 9, 421–441 (1888)).Otto Lehmann published his work "Flüssige Kristalle" (Liquid Crystals). In 1911, Charles Mauguin first experimented with liquid crystals confined between plates in thin layers.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

In 1964, George H. Heilmeier, then working at the RCA laboratories on the effect discovered by Williams achieved the switching of colors by field-induced realignment of dichroic dyes in a homeotropically oriented liquid crystal. Practical problems with this new electro-optical effect made Heilmeier continue to work on scattering effects in liquid crystals and finally the achievement of the first operational liquid-crystal display based on what he called the George H. Heilmeier was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of FameIEEE Milestone.

In the late 1960s, pioneering work on liquid crystals was undertaken by the UK"s Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern, England. The team at RRE supported ongoing work by George William Gray and his team at the University of Hull who ultimately discovered the cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals, which had correct stability and temperature properties for application in LCDs.

The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering mode (DSM) LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors.Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971.ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD.

In 1972, the concept of the active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display panel was prototyped in the United States by T. Peter Brody"s team at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.

In 1972 Nort