Issue China's self-reliance squeezes Korean exports while new Chinese bottlenecks open niches

Summary

China's push for self-reliance matters greatly for Korea because it shrinks Chinese demand for Korean intermediate goods and has already weakened Korean exports to China. The report treats global supply-chain fragmentation as a critical risk for a resource-poor economy heavily dependent on external trade, calling for stable supplies of economic security items and stronger crisis-response capacity. At the same time, China's industrial upgrading leaves bottlenecks in advanced chips, sensors, high-end machinery and software, where demand for imported parts and materials will persist. The Rhodium study it cites identifies advanced semiconductors and materials, sensors, high-end machinery such as CNC tools, EDA and chip equipment, and software as China's weakest areas. Korea's limited supply capability in these niches, however, means the new markets are going to the United States, Japan and Germany, so raising Korean competitiveness there is an urgent task.