A worker looks at a solar module at a factory in Huaian in China’s Jiangsu province on December 17, 2025. / AFP
Beijing’s latest export-control proposals mark a significant shift in how it intends to manage its technological rise. China’s ministries of commerce and of science and technology proposed adding 40 technologies across AI, advanced gene and cell technology, and solar power to a catalogue of prohibited or restricted exports. Fourteen would be subject to complete export bans and another 26 to restrictions. A public consultation will run until Nov. 15, but registration requirements for certain technology transfers have already taken effect.
China has spent years expanding its manufacturing base, attracting foreign investment and building expertise in technologies that other economies are now trying to develop domestically. Having established a strong position in several of these, China is growing more and more chary of them.
The shift is particularly visible in solar manufacturing. China dominates the global supply chain for solar panels and the equipment to produce them. Restricting access could preserve that advantage as the U.S., India and European countries attempt to build competing production capacity.
Beijing portrays the proposed measures as necessary for national security and the responsible management of sensitive technologies, and these concerns cannot simply be dismissed, but the breadth of the measures raises larger questions.
Solar power provides the clearest example. China accounts for more than 80 percent of global solar-panel component production and is home to the world’s leading suppliers of solar manufacturing equipment. Its dominance extends across much of the supply chain, from polysilicon and wafers to cells and finished modules. This concentration has helped drive down the cost of solar power worldwide, but it has also made other countries dependent on Chinese production and expertise.
This April, Chinese officials were already considering restrictions on exports of advanced solar manufacturing equipment to the United States. following reports that Tesla was seeking to buy approximately US$2.9 billion worth of equipment from Chinese suppliers as part of its plans to establish large-scale solar manufacturing in America. The proposed restrictions could have affected equipment used to manufacture so-called high-efficiency heterojunction solar cells.
The concern in Beijing was not simply that the technology might be transferred to a strategic rival: a successful American manufacturing expansion could also create a formidable competitor for Chinese producers at a time when their domestic industry was already struggling with overcapacity and financial pressure.
The October proposals now give this concern a broader institutional form. Rather than relying only on tariffs or restricting access to imported foreign technology, China is considering tighter control over the export of its own technological capabilities.
In 2023, Beijing introduced licensing requirements for exports of gallium and germanium, two materials used in semiconductors, defense electronics, fiberoptics and other advanced technologies. It subsequently tightened controls on graphite, a key material for battery anodes. In December 2024, it prohibited exports of certain dual-use items to U.S. military users or for military end uses and tightened restrictions on several critical materials destined for the U.S.
The effects were not confined to diplomatic statements. Chinese gallium exports fell sharply after the introduction of controls, while restrictions on germanium disrupted established supply relationships. By May 2025, gallium prices in Rotterdam had reportedly reached US$687 per kilogram, more than 150 percent above pre-control levels.
The controls did not permanently deprive foreign industries of these materials: buyers adjusted procurement, accumulated inventories and explored alternative suppliers. But substitution takes time, particularly where production depends on specialized refining processes and limited alternative capacity.
The episode demonstrated that China does not need to ban every export to influence another country’s industrial calculations. Licensing requirements, uncertainty over approvals, and the possibility of delayed shipments can themselves affect investment decisions. The new technology proposals extend this logic beyond raw materials toward the knowledge and equipment required to manufacture advanced products.
The new controls on AI are particularly significant because they go beyond physical equipment. China wants to restrict 23 technologies including certain models, AI agents and computing-cluster technologies. The measures would regulate their overseas transfer or deployment, while access through application programming interfaces, websites, applications and software-as-a-service platforms would remain exempt. Publicly available technologies, like those found in academic papers or open-source projects, would also fall outside the proposed controls.
That would suggest Beijing is not seeking to prevent all international use of Chinese AI. What it wants is greater control over the underlying technology that companies might otherwise transfer to foreign partners. For firms such as DeepSeek and Alibaba, the rules could allow continued international expansion while placing tighter limits on the transfer of proprietary capabilities. Yet they also introduce uncertainty over which technologies can be licensed, transferred or incorporated into overseas operations.
Restricting technology transfers may help China retain commercially valuable intellectual property. But it could also complicate collaborations, licensing agreements and the movement of research capabilities between countries. The eventual effects will depend on how the rules are defined and enforced, but the direction is clear: Beijing wants greater authority over the international movement of technologies it considers strategically important.
There are ironies here. China has long benefited from foreign investment, international research collaboration and access to overseas markets. Its industrial development was supported not only by domestic policy but also by the movement of capital, equipment, expertise and intellectual property across borders. Now that Chinese companies have established competitive advantages of their own, Beijing is suddenly becoming more selective about which technologies can travel across borders and which cannot.
China is of course also taking the risk that tighter controls will encourage other countries to accelerate efforts to reduce their dependence on Chinese technology. U.S. investment in domestic solar manufacturing, India’s production-linked incentives for solar equipment and Europe’s bid to strengthen clean-technology supply chains all reflect that desire. In other words, measures intended to preserve China’s technological lead could make foreign governments less willing to depend on it in the long term.
The restrictions are not yet a settled policy. The consultation process could change the scope of the controls, and the distinction between prohibited exports, licensed transfers and permitted commercial access will determine their practical impact.
Nevertheless, they reveal an important change in Beijing’s priorities. Technological success is no longer only about producing goods more cheaply or capturing larger shares of global markets but increasingly about controlling the capabilities that allow other countries to produce those goods themselves.
In many ways thatt is a logical response to American technology restrictions and intensifying strategic competition. But the approach also carries costs. The central question is whether China intends to remain the world’s leading supplier of advanced technologies or to use its position to determine how far others can advance. The two objectives are not necessarily incompatible, but the more Beijing relies on export controls to preserve its lead, the more likely it is that other economies will treat dependence on Chinese technology as a liability.
Chandu Doddi is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Chinese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Chandu Doddi is an assistant professor at the Centre for Chinese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
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