China’s counterattack in the tech • Table.Briefings

By Jost Wubbeke

Jost Wuebbeke is a business expert and Managing Partner at Sinolytics.

Without graphite from the People’s Republic, the electric car industry comes to a standstill. The Chinese leadership has recognized this and is now using this dependency as a political tool. At the same time, China wants to prevent the development of an independent battery industry in other countries. This makes the tentative attempts by the USA and Europe to build up an independent battery industry considerably more challenging.

China’s revised export restrictions on graphite hit the USA and its allies at a particularly vulnerable spot: In the supply chain for batteries and electric vehicles. This is because China is the only producer of spherical graphite, the base material for the anodes in lithium batteries.

China’s counterattack in the tech war

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