The Biden administration has reportedly halted approving licenses for US suppliers to export most items to Chinese tech company Huawei, and is weighing complete ban to cut Huawei off from all American suppliers, a sign that paranoid Washington has taken its relentless assault on the Chinese tech industry a step further and morphed it into a geopolitical battle for supremacy. 

Targeting Huawei, a representative of China's rising high-tech industry, is not a new development, as the tech giant was added to the US trade blacklist four years ago. But what is ironic, according to observers, is that after years of "whack-a-mole" restrictions on a raft of Chinese tech firms, the Biden administration had to abruptly jump back to the original target.

The playbook not only lays bare that the US' export controls were futile in undercutting Chinese tech capabilities, but also mirrors Washington's desperation to "up the ante" ahead of the so-called second Summit for Democracy in March, during which it aims to rope in more allies to push for industrial decoupling with China. 

The ban, when coming into effect, is estimated to have certain impacts on Huawei's smartphone and laptop businesses, though the Chinese company could substitute American suppliers with other companies such as MediaTek. The controls will strike at US companies more, which are already grappling with sliding revenues and huge layoff pressures, analysts warned.

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