Testimony at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC)

Jan-Peter Kleinhans was invited by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to testify in the hearing on "U.S.-China Competition in Global Supply Chains".

His testimony answered the following questions:

• Provide a brief overview of the key components of the semiconductor supply chain and their geographic distribution.

• From the United States’ and China’s perspective, what are the relative strengths and the key chokepoints each faces in the semiconductor supply chain? 

• What are the key features of the semiconductor supply chain that might make government intervention difficult?

• How have East Asian nation-states been so effective in concentrating supply chains in that region?

• What is “resilience” with respect to the semiconductor supply chain? How much re-shoring, near-shoring, and ally-shoring is feasible in your view? How much is about leveraging strategic interdependence, or the complex interdependencies across the global value chain, to manage vulnerabilities?

• Assess how difficult it would be for the United States and China to achieve “resilience” given that both will be attempting to create asymmetrical dependencies and vulnerabilities?

• What specific tools should the U.S. government leverage to build resilience into semiconductor supply chains? 

• The Commission is mandated to make recommendations to Congress. What other policy recommendations would you make based on the topic of your testimony?

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created by the United States Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to monitor, investigate, and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.