The Chinese government, which has been actively supporting the semiconductor industry for many years, is trying to create a fair competitive environment for the local industry by using antitrust issues; However, the strategy of China's second largest economy in the world, though it is to ensure fair trade, may unintentionally build a new the Great Wall.
China has become the largest semiconductor market in the world since 2012, occupying 52% of the global demand, and continues to be the growth power for the semiconductor industry; including Qualcomm，MediaTek，and domestic semiconductor manufacturers such as SMIC and Spreadtrum Communications .
The Wall Street journal recently reported that The Chinese government asks for Spreadtrum Communications design a custom-made "security" processor for an official smart phone ,which is expected to replace handset processors supplied by American businessmen within one to two years; Because Beijing suspects that the chips from the United States include the "back door" that allows foreign spies to eavesdrop - after the former CIA clerk Edward Snowden disclosed the US government's monitoring of overseas countries, China has a good reason to protect its country from safety.
China's antitrust investigation into Qualcomm has leted the world's largest smartphone chip business hit，The company expects sales and profits this year to decline due to the loss of wafer orders and fierce competition in the Chinese market.
China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, the three state-run telecom operators in China, have great influence on the technology industry that is taking off. China Mobile, known as the world's largest telecom operator, has recently changed its mobile purchasing policy.From five frequency to triple frequency, the former is what Qualcomm chips are good at.
China Mobile's new policy encourages Chinese local application processor vendors to compete for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low power technology, and will also benefit Chinese local chip designers like Spreadtrum Communications, Leadcore, and benefit the local smart phone manufacturers
China's antitrust policy has also attracted the attention of US President Obama (Barack Obama). According to the Reuters (Reuters), he was deeply concerned about China's use of antitrust strategies to limit the royalty collected by foreign tradesman，especially when he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in December 2014.
In addition to smart phones, smart TV and other emerging markets that China hopes to become leaders has also been affected. China's antitrust agency has delayed the merger of the two major chip designers of Taiwan and the $3 billion 800 million of the Mstar (MStar) for more than a year until it was formally passed in August 2013. However, the additional proviso is the need to maintain the the Great Wall mechanism between the development team of MediaTek and Mstar.
The Ministry of Commerce of China says the MediaTek and Mstar. can not cooperate in the field of LCD TV chips. As the Mstar's subsidiary LCD TV chip business, it must maintain independent operation;one of the reasons for the acquisition of Mstar is that the key technology of the design of the TV chip is to be obtained. People familiar with the situation point out that China will not want to see Taiwan businessmen gain strong bargaining power.
Although China has a reason to play a greater impact on the issue of antitrust, it may also lead to rigid competition; the far-reaching impact of the new wall in the field of technology industry is unforeseeable and ultimately not beneficial to China.
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