In the not so distant future, both China and the United States could be at war, triggering the most significant global crisis since World War Two.
Tensions between the two global superpowers have been steadily escalating, as Beijing prepares its military to capture Taiwan.
In response, Washington’s generals have been steeling themselves for a fight, devising new war-fighting strategies and building new military alliances.
While we’ve not yet reached the stage of a “hot war” just yet, the tech war is well and truly underway.
On Tuesday, China retaliated against US chip export curbs by banning shipments of materials critical to the production of weapons in the other direction.
The commerce ministry in Beijing announced the export of “dual-use” items related to gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials to the US had been suspended.
Military hardware
Most commonly the materials are used to produce everyday items like solar panels, batteries and semiconductors.
But they also play a role in the production of key military hardware, including missiles, communications systems and armour-piercing bullets.
On Monday, Washington announced restrictions on the export of critical semiconductor manufacturing tools and a ban on shipments of advanced high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which are used in artificial intelligence systems, to China.
Antimony is the material that is likely to be looked at most closely.
The lesser-known heavy metal is used for all manner of military production, from basic ammunition, night-vision goggles to infrared-guided missiles and nuclear weapons.
The technologies, especially missiles, are expected to be key in any US-China war over Taiwan.
Last year, China accounted for 48 per cent of the globally mined antimony, creating the risk of shortages elsewhere around the world if exports are shut down.
“Everyone will dig in their backyard to find antimony. Many countries will try to find antimony deposits,” an anonymous metals trader in Europe told the Reuters news agency, highlighting the material’s importance.
But crucially for China, the export ban gives its leaders the chance to evaluate just how reliant the US is on its supply of the material.
According to figures for 2023, 63 per cent of the 22,000 tons of antimony imported by the US came from China.
If there are to be any more exports heading in the direction of Washington, Beijing will sign off on permissions.
This will hand the Chinese Communist Party indirect information on what industries in the US are most reliant on the materials leaving the country.
It could also be seen as a move to hamper US weapons production at a time when its stockpiles are lower than usual because of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
If those shortages are not addressed, it could prove fatal for Washington in an armed conflict versus Beijing.
It is unlikely that the US will be able to replace China as its principal supplier of antimony, considering that Russia is the world’s second-largest producer of the material.
US looking for new supplies of materials
Like many Western countries, the US is scouring the world for new supplies of these rare materials.
But this process is slow, and means Chinese military production is outpacing US efforts at a rate of five times faster.
In a war game carried out by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the US launched 5,000 missiles in the first three weeks of a conflict with China.
“In every iteration of the war game, the United States expanded its inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles within the first week of the conflict, creating a critical problem of ‘empty bins’,” the think tank wrote in a subsequent report.
Beijing’s latest restrictions were introduced in response to policies enforced by Joe Biden, the outgoing US president, who is considered a moderate when it comes to challenging China.
Relations are only expected to deteriorate when Donald Trump starts his second term in the White House on Jan 21.
The Republican president-elect has said he will impose an extra 10 per cent in trade tariffs on goods arriving from China.
China has vowed to hit back with its own counter-measures, including even more restrictions on shipments of rare and critical materials.
What Mr Trump does when he takes over will be crucial to narrowing the growing military production gap ahead of what could be an armed conflict between the two superpowers.
