This NY Times article analyses the impact of US President Biden’s recent decision to prohibit the sale of certain classes of micro-processors to China. The decision is broad, prohibing Amercans from working in China in the field of advanced micro-processors, or for companies that use US origin machines or software to sell their products to China. The article opines that this action will hamper Chinese development of artificiel intelligence, and of advanced military equipment. The text compares this decision to the pre World War II American decision to stop sale of oil to Japan, and notes that this was one of the elements that made Japan decide on the Pearl Harbor attack. The author wonders if China will interpret this decision in a similar way, pushing towards major China-US conflict.