Chess, Go and the struggle for global supply chains

Jorge Costa Oliveira

The contest between China and the West is often described through tariffs, sanctions and technological breakthroughs. But its logic may be easier to understand by looking at two board games: chess and Go.

In “On China,” Henry Kissinger contrasted the Western strategic tradition with its Chinese counterpart. Chess seeks a decisive victory by checkmating the opposing king. Go, known in China as weiqi, rewards the patient accumulation of territory and positional advantage. The distinction offers a lens for understanding competition over global supply chains.

These are metaphors, not fixed national characteristics. Yet they illuminate a fundamental strategic difference: the pursuit of an immediate breakthrough versus the construction of an enduring position.

Chess begins with pieces arranged in a hierarchy, each with a defined role. Go begins with an empty board and stones of equal value. Their strength emerges from their placement and relationships. Victory depends on how individual positions combine to control the wider playing field.

Much of Western economic strategy has overlooked those relationships. Companies moved manufacturing and energy-intensive processing overseas to reduce costs, while retaining design, intellectual property and advanced technology. Each decision could make commercial sense. Together, they created vulnerabilities that quarterly earnings reports rarely captured.

Governments have often responded when those vulnerabilities became crises. Sanctions and export restrictions target specific technologies or adversaries. Industrial initiatives, including America’s CHIPS and Science Act and the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act, seek to rebuild capabilities. But protecting a valuable piece does not automatically secure the territory around it.

China’s industrial rise illustrates the alternative approach. Beijing did not need to displace Western technological leadership everywhere. It strengthened its position in the intermediate stages on which entire industries depend.

Critical minerals and metals provide the clearest example. Owning ore deposits is only part of the equation. Refining and chemical processing turn those resources into usable industrial inputs. By building capacity in these stages, China established positions that manufacturers elsewhere cannot easily bypass.

The same logic extends to batteries, solar panels, electric vehicles and other technologies central to the energy transition. Competitive advantage comes from combining materials, processing, components, manufacturing expertise and scale. These connections make individual industries stronger while increasing the costs of replacing their suppliers.

The Belt and Road Initiative adds a logistical dimension. Ports, railways and transport links across regions can be understood as connected positions on a larger board. Their strategic significance lies in how they support production and trade over time.

The West retains substantial strengths, including advanced semiconductor equipment, software and intellectual property. But technological sophistication does not eliminate dependence on the metals and manufacturing systems underlying it. A powerful queen still needs room to move.

Western industrial policy therefore requires more than subsidies for flagship factories or restrictions on finished products. It needs sustained investment in critical metals processing, infrastructure, skills and diversified supply networks, coordinated across industries and allied countries.

That also means accepting costs that short-term efficiency measures once encouraged businesses to avoid. Resilience requires spare capacity, alternative suppliers and political commitment extending beyond an election cycle.

The lesson is not that China always wins or that the West must copy its system. It is that economic power rests on connections as much as inventions. The decisive question is who controls the network that allows those inventions to become products. Winning requires seeing the whole board.

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