The US and its allies are increasingly restricting China’s ability to import key technologies, especially advanced semiconductors and the machines that make them. In the latest development, Japan is imposing controls on 23 types of chip technology that domestic companies can export to countries such as China. Japanese companies are not as prominent as the Netherlands’ ASML Holding NV or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., but they dominate several stages of the chip-making process. Japan’s support will fortify the US-led blockade of China, thwarting its efforts to build a domestic technology industry that can support its economic and political ambitions.

President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled its chip strategy last year because of what it sees as a new era in the US-China relationship, with rising risks for economic and perhaps military conflict. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained the US must do whatever it can to ensure the country has as large a technological advantage as possible, a break from earlier strategies of maintaining a relative advantage. In October, the Commerce Department slapped a ban on exporting certain artificial intelligence chips to China without a license, as well as prohibitions on selling chipmaking equipment for the most advanced silicon. The US may expand those restrictions as it finalizes them this year, including by adding limits on the chips that AI leader Nvidia Corp. can sell without a license.