Chips, power, and bargaining

the U.S.–China dispute and the attempt to redesign the global technology regime (2010-2025)

Abstract

This article analyzes the escalation of Sino–U.S. competition in trade and technology between 2010 and 2025 through the lens of Keohane and Nye’s “issue-area power structure” model. It argues that, upon identifying a growing incongruence between its structural position and the benefits distributed by the prevailing multilateral regime, the United States has turned to selective coercive instruments—Section 301 tariffs, the listing of firms on the Entity List, and later the CHIPS and Science Act with extraterritorial controls—to precipitate abrupt change in the rules governing semiconductors and digital supply chains. The study employs qualitative process tracing, combining official documents, trade statistics, and specialized literature. The findings suggest that the U.S. offensive bought time but did not restore hegemony: it generated partial technological substitution in China, heightened uncertainty within the World Trade Organization (WTO), and contributed to normative fragmentation. For the Global South, this hybrid environment creates risks—such as compelled regulatory alignment—as well as opportunities, including investment attraction in semiconductor packaging, the rising value of critical minerals, and access to alternative financing through the Belt and Road Initiative. These countries’ ability to translate sensitivity into bargaining power is likely to condition the magnitude of their outcomes.