Officials in Berlin are reportedly mapping out industries where China is still dependent on German suppliers, as they search for the same kind of chokepoints Beijing has spent years accumulating in Europe. But while European analysts deemed the search long overdue, some warned that any leverage it found would be both hard to use and shorter-lived than Berlin hoped. The reported search comes amid escalating trade tensions and increasing concerns in Germany about losing its industrial base to Chinese competition. Bloomberg reported last week that Berlin was analysing areas in which China still depends on European technology and industrial know-how. Trumpf said it exported only standard products to China, and had “not been asked by the German government to disclose differentiated supply chains”.