For four years, Washington has pursued an increasingly aggressive strategy to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors. The objective was straightforward: deny Beijing the computing power required to compete with the United States at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence.

But four years is more than enough time to examine whether that strategy has delivered what its architects promised.

The evidence increasingly suggests something deeply uncomfortable for Washington: America’s semiconductor restrictions may have done less to stop China’s AI ambitions than to accelerate them.

When the United States began tightening export controls, many Chinese semiconductor companies were struggling to attract customers. Domestic buyers had access to more advanced American chips from companies such as Nvidia and AMD, and Chinese alternatives were often regarded as inferior substitutes.

That market has changed dramatically.

Chinese chipmakers that once struggled to sell their products are now reportedly running at capacity. Chinese AI models are increasingly winning enterprise customers. And Chinese technology executives are openly acknowledging that Washington’s restrictions gave their industry precisely the incentive it needed to build an indigenous technological ecosystem.

That is not what the export-control strategy was supposed to accomplish.

It was supposed to preserve America’s technological lead. Instead, it may be helping China build the very ecosystem Washington feared.

The transformation is visible across China’s semiconductor industry. Biren Technology, for example, reportedly recorded a 22-fold surge in revenue, benefiting from a domestic market in which Chinese customers increasingly have little choice but to purchase locally produced alternatives. Cambricon has reported its first full-year profit, with revenue rising by 450 percent.

The irony is difficult to miss.

Washington wanted to make Chinese semiconductor companies uncompetitive by denying them access to advanced American technology. Instead, it helped create a captive market in which Chinese companies could........

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