China's New Export Curbs on Tunnel Boring Machines: What They Mean for India's Metros, Bullet Train and Solar Push

Two Chinese measures landed within four days of each other, and they are being reported as one. On 16 October, China's commerce and science ministries published a draft list of technologies that would be restricted or banned from export. On 19 October, the commerce ministry announced export licensing for tunnel boring machines and related equipment. The first is a draft open for comment. The second is a rule with a start date. India has a stake in both, but not in the same way.

What was announced on 19 October

China's commerce ministry, MOFCOM, said the new controls take effect on 18 November. Reports from the Press Trust of India and Edge Malaysia, which carried a Beijing dateline of 19 October, list the covered items: tunnel boring machines and related items, walking excavators, "plateau-type" wet shotcrete machines, and dredging equipment such as slurry pumps, pump casings, impellers, dragheads and cutterheads above set size thresholds.

Exporters will need a licence from MOFCOM under China's dual-use export control rules. According to PSU Watch, customs can hold a shipment until verification is complete. That is a licensing regime, not a ban. The practical question is how fast licences are issued and to whom, and nothing published so far answers it.

The sources do not say China named India, and MOFCOM has said on a related measure that it does not target any country. Some headlines put India in the framing, which is the outlet's reading, not China's statement.

The separate draft on technology exports

On 16 October, MOFCOM and the Ministry of Science and Technology released a draft revision to the catalogue of export-restricted technologies, as reported by Global Times. It adds 40 items: 14 prohibited and 26 restricted. By sector, 23 are in AI, 12 in solar photovoltaics and 5 in biomedicine. Public comment runs from 16 October to 15 November. Some Indian reports refer to "14 technologies", which appears to be the prohibited subset, though that is an inference and not something the sources confirm.

The solar items cover manufacturing technology and know-how, not finished panels. Business Standard lists wafers down to 70 micrometres, fluidised-bed polysilicon, TOPCon, heterojunction and back-contact cells, and perovskite and perovskite-silicon tandem cells. Global Times places perovskite cell technology on the prohibited list and heterojunction on the restricted list. Because this is a draft, the final list could change.

Where India is exposed on tunnelling

India has already been through a version of this. In late 2024, the German manufacturer Herrenknecht said machines were not reaching India because of unusual conditions in Chinese customs. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, riding the Delhi Metro with Germany's Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, said:

We should stop buying German equipment now.

(Business Today, 2 November 2024.) The sharpest case is the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train. For its 21 km underground stretch from BKC to Shilphata, three customised Mixshield machines of about 13.56 metres were built at Herrenknecht's Guangzhou factory. Swarajya reports the delay ran past a year and drew in the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of External Affairs. Two of the machines were unloaded at JNPT on 23 March 2026. China gave no official reason for the delay, and Swarajya links it to the Galwan clashes as context, not as a confirmed cause.

There is a counter-reading. In January 2025, Amit Kumar and Pranay Kotasthane of the Takshashila Institution argued that India's dependence is smaller than the headlines suggest. They put dependence on China for standard TBMs at around 100% in 2019, with imports down 85% by 2023, and cited Herrenknecht's managing director as saying every metro TBM supplied to India in the previous two years was built at its Chennai facility. Their conclusion was that China's leverage is weaker than assumed and India can diversify faster.

The two accounts fit together better than they first appear. Standard metro-sized machines can be sourced elsewhere or built in India. Large, customised machines like the bullet train's were made in Guangzhou. That points to exposure concentrated in specialised units, not across the whole programme. One caution: the Takshashila data predates this rule, so it describes the earlier position and not the effect of licensing.

It is also worth remembering that in August 2025, during Wang Yi's India visit, Business Today reported, citing the Economic Times, that China had lifted curbs on fertilisers, rare earth magnets and TBMs. Business Today said it could not verify this independently. The new licensing rule shows the arrangement, whatever it was, did not last or did not cover this.

The solar question is different

The solar draft matters for what India wants to build, not for what it already installs. Business Standard, citing a 2026 TERI estimate, puts India's capacity at roughly 120 GW for modules and 30 GW for cells, with about 2 GW for ingots and wafers and no commercial-scale polysilicon. The same article says 70 to 100 percent of wafer and cell equipment is imported, mostly from Chinese suppliers. It also cites NITI Aayog and CRISIL (August 2026) putting import dependence at about 100% for polysilicon, over 90% for wafers and over 60% for cells.

If the draft is finalised as written, the pressure falls on India's plans to move upstream from assembling modules to making cells and wafers. Licences for equipment and technology transfer would run through Beijing. A ban would not stop India's current module output, but it could slow the next stage. That depends entirely on the final text, and the comment period is still open.

Global Chanakya Assessment

The evidence supports a narrow claim. China has put licensing on a class of heavy infrastructure equipment from 18 November and is consulting on tighter limits on solar and other technology. It has not announced a ban on TBMs, and it has not named India.

The more useful way to read the TBM rule is as a lever, not a wall. A licence requirement lets China slow or approve individual shipments, which is what happened informally in 2024. The first cases to test it will be orders of customised, large-diameter machines, not standard metro units. The solar draft is the larger long-run issue for India, since it targets the technologies a domestic cell and wafer industry would have to buy.

One assumption deserves caution: that these steps are aimed at India. The announced scope covers all exporters, and the sources do not show India being singled out. India may still feel it more than most, because of the projects it has underway.

Indicators to Monitor

• Whether the final technology catalogue changes the 40 additions after comments close on 15 November
• The size thresholds and licence procedures MOFCOM publishes before 18 November
• How quickly licences are issued after 18 November, and whether Indian buyers are among the applicants
• Any statement from India's External Affairs Ministry, the commerce ministry or the railways ministry
• Delivery news on India's remaining metro and rail tunnelling orders
• Whether Indian solar manufacturers report delays in equipment or technology purchases from Chinese suppliers