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The Chinese flag and a table of minerals. (Reuters/Yonhap)

Just one day after China’s Ministry of Commerce banned the exports of dual-use items to Japan, it launched an anti-dumping investigation in regard to Japanese imports of a material used in making semiconductors.

The ministry announced it was opening an anti-dumping probe into imports of the chemical dichlorosilane from Japan. A ministry spokesperson said the volume of dichlorosilane imported from Japan had risen between 2022 and 2024, while the price fell 31% over the same period. According to the ministry, these practices had damaged the domestic dichlorosilane industry.

Dichlorosilane is one of the chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing.

The ministry plans to complete its anti-dumping probe, which began on Wednesday, within a year, before Jan. 7, 2027.

The probe will consider whether dumping occurred between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, and also assess whether the domestic industry was harmed by dumping between Jan. 1, 2022, and June 30, 2025.

Some see the anti-dumping probe as the latest move in China’s pressure campaign on Japan, following a ban on exports of materials with military applications to Japan announced on Tuesday, just one day earlier.

China took the extreme measure of banning these so-called dual-use items in its ongoing backlash to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in early November about the possibility of Japan exercising the right to collective self-defense in the event of a Taiwan contingency.

While the ministry’s announcement did not specify which items would be covered by the export ban, it did state that the ban would follow China’s Export Control Law and China’s regulations on export controls of dual-use items.

Under the Export Control Law, at the end of each year, China releases a list of dual-use items and technologies that cannot be traded without government approval during the following year.

The list released on Dec. 31 included around 850 such dual-use items and technologies, including seven heavy rare earths.

In a report on Wednesday, Chinese state-owned English newspaper China Daily quoted a source as saying that China is also looking into toughening reviews of exports of raw earths not included in the ban on exporting dual-use materials to Japan.

If China moves ahead with stricter reviews of exports of rare earths for civilian use, it would basically mean halting all exports of Chinese-produced rare earths to Japan.

By Lee Jeong-yeon, Beijing correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]