[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-chips/chi...
Nothing today can throw any country back to a stone age than loss of access to microelectronics:
1. Loss of powerplants and the grid infrastructure - possible to rebuild, and immediate impact is not catastrophic
2. Loss of food supply stocks - unless, you are blockaded, you can just buy abroad
3. Loss of fertilizer stocks - just as survivable as loss of food supply.
4. Loss of hydrocarbon supply - an even more laughable national emergency.
5. Heavy industry - just rebuild, you can wholly rebuild it with pre-industrial tech level.
6. Loss of microelectronics - you fc*ked - to make microchips, you need more microchips, and to build those microchips, you need a ton of other microchips. You achieve nothing if you manage to replicate the technology of the era of first ICs.
domestic consumption is also at a crazy level, e.g. in Q1 2018, smartphone sales in China had a "hard landing" down 21% YoY, still 91 million phones were sold in Q1 2018 [1].
[1] https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/chinese-smartphone-market-s...