I am devoted to scientific research, but you want to trick me into having a love relationship?

Chapter 754 We need to prepare for the worst.
There is a saying in the Xia state: "To kill a thousand enemies, you will lose eight hundred of your own."

Lawrence took a sip of coffee.

Klinger fell silent. Lawrence was right. Xia Guo urgently needed to find new markets. If the struggle in the field of controlled nuclear fusion were to spread to the field of batteries, it would be a losing proposition.

"Next comes the negotiation game that politicians excel at."

Lawrence shrugged.

Xia Guo certainly won't unleash its most powerful weapon right away, but they have plenty of cards to play, and they may ultimately maximize their benefits through a gradual approach of applying pressure.

The world relies on China for 69% of its artificial graphite and 100% of its spherical graphite, with no alternative in the short term.

Most importantly, lithium is a key material for tritium breeding in controlled nuclear fusion, but 70% of lithium processing comes from the Xia Kingdom.

Compared to things like lithium dendrites and the shuttle effect, which involve a wider range of issues, Xia Guo is more likely to counter them by focusing on these supporting technologies.

"This is a dangerous act."

"Klinger said in a deep voice. He was also amazed by the speed of development in China's controlled nuclear fusion field, especially Xu Qingzhou, a formidable opponent, but he preferred fair competition."

"Unfortunately, this will be an unprecedented lockdown."

Lawrence sighed.

"Both the United States and China want to vie for global dominance, and what we need to do is seek a balance between these two super-economys and rebuild Germany's former glory."

The conference room at the Materials Research Institute in Kyoto.

Ji Yunshi, having gathered all the key personnel, cut to the chase and said directly, "According to information from above, an embargo may be about to begin, spearheaded by the United States, with Europe, Japan, and South Korea expected to respond soon."

What aspects are involved?

Zhao Shengwen frowned and asked.

“Complete suppression.” Ji Yunshi said heavily: “The entire upstream and downstream industrial chain in the field of controlled nuclear fusion, including technology, equipment, and talent exchange, has been completely suppressed.”

"This is a preparation to completely decouple from us in the field of fusion," Zheng Xu said in a deep voice.

"The Americans are panicking."

Ren Nan smiled, his mindset was excellent. He had experienced far more severe periods than this one and was used to the actions of the United States. He firmly believed that the bigger the enemy's actions, the more correct their path was.

Xu Qingzhou was the first to receive the news from the Ministry of Science and Technology. He met with Ji Yunshi and said slowly, "Domestically, there has always been the pain point of insufficient localization rate of fusion equipment. From another perspective, this can also force Xia Guo to rebuild its underlying industrial system."

"We have always invested heavily in innovation."

"But the localization of equipment cannot be accomplished by our company alone."

Ren Nan said with some helplessness, "Yes, although the development has been rapid in recent years, the high-precision equipment is still monopolized by Europe and the United States."

"I called everyone here today just to give you a heads-up. We've already bought the equipment we needed, so the US's actions won't have much of an impact on us."

"However, we need to prepare for the worst."

Xu Qingzhou paused for a moment, then pondered again: "The United States' actions may not be limited to this."

"Currently, they are only working with allies to contain it. I suspect they might even pressure the ITER organization to freeze Xia's access rights and block the plasma control codebase."

"If it drags on for a year or two, even if our appeal is successful, it will slow down our progress." It is undeniable that China's progress in magnetic confinement fusion research in recent years has also benefited from participating in the ITER project. For example, in the design and construction of the Circulator 2m, China has drawn on a lot of successful experience in the construction and operation of existing tokamak devices internationally.

"The United States is capable of doing something so shameless."

Zheng Xu immediately started swearing.

He had spent many years in the United States and was very familiar with the way things were done there.

"We cannot avoid the impact either."

Because of their collaboration on superconducting thin films, their institute also has access to the ITER database.

The most direct impact is that they, as well as the EAST and HL-2M devices, cannot obtain the latest operational data of the ITER device, such as plasma confinement parameters and material properties, which affects experimental optimization.

"In fact, compared with EAST and Circulation 3, their impact on us is almost negligible."

The GENE code (five-dimensional turbulence simulation program) dominated by Europe and the United States is a core tool for plasma control. The EAST and FX168 use this code. If it is disabled, it will lead to a decrease in the operational stability of the fusion device in the short term.

Ren Nan continued, "The situation isn't that bad. In the past two years, China's fusion devices have developed rapidly. In terms of data sharing, China has been one of the contributors. Freezing China's access rights will only hurt other countries more."

"That's right."

“We are no longer people who can be manipulated. In recent years, China has achieved a technological closed loop in the fields of device engineering and superconducting materials. The freezing of ITER permissions only affects short-term data sharing.”

"To forge iron, one must be strong oneself. As for ITER, let's see how the US performs. Our goal is to complete the experiment in July."

"I'm already looking forward to the experiment in July."

The discussion lasted an hour and a half, explaining the impact of the US actions on China and the Materials Research Institute, and finally confirming the latest experimental progress.

"Last night, the University of Seville in Spain called to confirm the cancellation of the previous visit."

As the world's second tokamak with a negative triangular configuration, the SMART device is still very valuable in terms of data. Previously, they had also planned to exchange some experimental data on the negative triangular configuration and discuss turbulence suppression models.

"Currently, even without us, China's two devices, the EAST and FX300, are sufficient to support the construction of domestic demonstration reactors."

Xu Qingzhou stood by the window with a cup of coffee. June already felt like summer, and the sun was scorching hot on him.

The U.S. action will focus on materials and equipment, restricting the sale of high-power ion sources and microwave radio frequency systems, and cutting off the supply of equipment such as cryogenic refrigerators and vacuum pumps.

It also restricts the joint postdoctoral training program between Xia and the United States and prohibits Chinese scholars from participating in fusion laboratories.

Klinger also sent an email saying that the United States was putting pressure on South Korea's KSTAR and Japan's JT-60SA to terminate their cooperation with China.

"Japan and South Korea will undoubtedly comply; it's just a matter of what Europe chooses."

Europe is not a monolithic bloc. For example, Hungary is quite resistant to antagonizing Xia Kingdom in this regard. Germany, as a country that relies on Xia Kingdom's technology, had previously sought cooperation with Xia Kingdom, but this time chose to remain neutral.

"This shows that Germany remains wary of us in the energy sector. It doesn't matter if Xia Guo loses; if we gain the upper hand, they can use that as an opportunity to cooperate."

"But it doesn't matter. In the face of absolute power, the art of balancing is useless."

The confidence of a phony.

(End of this chapter)