The decline in chip imports is easy to explain. After the huge demand of consumer electronics during the lockdown, the industry will have to endure a long dry spell where few sales will happen, this has been hitting the bottom line of every major chip vendor. They are all cutting production, trimming down personnel, etc. The dry spell might continue for several years. As things are today the desktop sector and the smartphone sector are also pretty much mature, people have little reason to upgrade.
I will give you some concrete examples. I bought a new computer recently. I have it stored and am still using the old one I bought 6 years ago just fine. The stupid graphics card I got is barely better than my older one and the drivers suck. I do not advise anyone to buy Intel Arc GPU like I did. You are better off with AMD. The rest is pretty much a vast upgrade. I am waiting for better drivers to show up for the hardware I bought before I use it. I had to return one major component because it was not suitable, I ordered a new component to replace it, and the new component was $150 cheaper, despite being more capable, and this after only 2-3 weeks since I bought it. The prices are collapsing all the time. The SSD I bought for example had almost 50% discount on it. I should have bought my computer 6 months from now, should have been cheaper by then, but I have been expecting the semiconductor trade war to heat up, I want to buy my computer now, before anything happens which disrupts supply. I doubt anything major will happen, but who knows. The Japanese not selling photoresist to YMTC is just one example of the problems which might happen. If China counters, all it takes is some small delays on shipping equipment for whatever reason, or the Chinese government decides to do a neon gas export embargo in cooperation with Russia, then semiconductor supplies will go down the toilet. The industry is way more fragile than people realize.
