export controls on semiconductors, China is now facing an increasingly urgent challenge as it seeks to ramp up its domestic innovative capacity for high-end chips. Yet at the turn of the new year, Bloomberg reported that China is pausing its investment in its domestic semiconductor industry, most likely due to financial strain from COVID-19, ineffective subsidies, and corruption. He is a 2023 Nuclear Scholar of the Center of Strategic and International Studies’s Project on Nuclear Issues and a 2021 recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans