解析美国的半导体产业霸权:产业权力的政治经济学分析

20世纪中期,美国出于军工需要孕育产生了最早的半导体产业,并长期执世界之牛耳。从20世纪80年代开始,随着半导体技术逐渐向全球扩散,日本、韩国和中国台湾等东亚经济体先后在该领域崭露头角,半导体产业的全球发展格局也从"一枝独秀"转变为"百花齐放"。然而,近年来美国在半导体领域对中国高科技企业尤其是对华为的强力打压表明,尽管半导体的产业分工已高度全球化,而且美国本土的半导体生产和制造也确实相对衰落,但美国在该产业仍拥有十分强悍的霸权地位,且主要体现在其产业控制力而非产业竞争力上。美国对中国发动的规模空前的"芯片战争",不仅对相关企业的发展产生了显著的负面影响,而且对整个中国信息与通讯产业的升级都构成了严重阻碍,彰显了美国巨大的产业权力。美国这种产业权力源于其对半导体产业在技术链、金融链和消费链三个方面所拥有的强大控制能力,这种产业控制力并没有因为其产业竞争力的衰退而有所减弱。它们具体分别体现为在产业链关键环节对核心技术和高端研发的控制,对主要半导体企业在融资渠道和股权结构方面的控制,以及作为世界最重要的半导体产品买家而形成的市场控制。技术控制、金融控制和市场控制,共同构成了美国半导体产业霸权的三个基石,确保美国在产业竞争力相对衰退的情况下仍具有强大的产业权力。这种建立在技术—资本—市场基础上的三维分析框架,也为中国半导体产业的逆势崛起与战略突围提供了一些对症下药的思路。

Decoding the U.S.Hegemony in the Semiconductor Industry:Conceptualizing the Political Economy of Industrial Power

Since it created the semiconductor industry to meet the needs of the military in the mid-20 th century,the United States has long been the world leader in this field.From the 1980 sonwards,as semiconductor technology gradually spread around the world,East Asian economies such as Japan,South Korea and Taiwan also emerged to change the industry’s landscape from“oneman show”to“hundred flowers in blossom”.However,the recent U.S.strong suppression of Chinese high-tech companies,especially Huawei,has revealed that the U.S.still possesses absolute hegemonic power in the semiconductor industry,measured mainly by industrial control rather than industrial competitiveness,despite the highly globalized division of labor and the relative decline of the U.S.domestic manufacturing.The U.S.“chip war”against China on an unprecedented scale has produced not only a significant negative impact on the development of related enterprises,but also a serious obstacle to the upgrading of China’s entire Information and Communications Technology(ICT)industry,underscoring the enormous industrial power of the U.S.Such industrial power stems from its strong control over three parts of the semiconductor industry:the technology chain,the financial chain and the consumer chain.The U.S.control has not been weakened by the decline of its industrial competitiveness.Specifically,the U.S.controls core technologies and high-end research and development in key segments of the industrial chain,and major semiconductor companies in terms of financing channels and equity structures.Moreover,as the world’s largest buyer of semiconductor products,the U.S.controls the market.Technology control,financial control and market control together constitute the three cornerstones of U.S.hegemony in the semiconductor industry,which in turn ensures that the U.S.retains strong industrial power despite its relative decline in industrial competitiveness.Hopefully,this three-dimensional analysis framework based on technologycapital-market could shed light on the rise and strategic breakthrough of China’s semiconductor industry against the odds.