Cho Yong Sung

The Chinese stock market, which fell the previous day, continued its decline on October 22. Concerns over U.S. sanctions on Chinese AI hardware contributed to the drop in indices. The Shanghai Composite Index closed down 1.48% at 3,658.03, the Shenzhen Component Index fell 2.96% to 11,357.32, and the ChiNext Index decreased by 4.37% to 2,576.90. Chinese companies in the optical communication sector, which had driven the market's rise in the first half of the year, saw significant losses.

China has localized a high-end transmission electron microscope (TEM) necessary for atomic-level analysis of semiconductors and advanced materials. Guoyangzi (CIQTEK), a Chinese scientific instrument manufacturer, unveiled its 200kV field emission transmission electron microscope, the 'TEM-F200,' at the 2026 National Electron Microscopy Academic Conference held in Nanjing on October 18.

Jeon Byeong-seo, head of the China Economic and Financial Research Institute, acknowledged the necessity of policy finance to support China's strategic industries such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence. However, he emphasized the need to establish a clear 'exit mechanism' regarding the timing of support termination and the transition to private funding.