US Memories Inc may sound like a greeting-card company. In fact, it was the name for a proposed industry-wide joint venture to keep the US in the memory chip business at the end of the 1980s, as the sector reeled from a Japanese corporate onslaught.

US Memories is a forgotten footnote in the technology history books. The attempt at collective action failed when some of the backers got cold feet. Instead, the fight back, when it came, took a far more American form: an entrepreneurial start-up from the unlikely location of Boise, Idaho, called Micron Technology.

Now the US faces another challenge from Asia in the chips that act as one of the most basic components of the digital world. News this month that Tsinghua Unicom, an offshoot of Beijing’s Tsinghua University, has been weighing up an offer for Micron has provoked a predictable ripple of nationalist angst. When kites like this are flown in public, it is often to find out what the reaction to a formal offer would be. On cue, Republican senator John McCain worried publicly about the “potential national security implications” if the US lost a significant position in memory chips. That Tsinghua is a Chinese state-owned company was among the factors weighing on the his mind.

Much has changed in the chip world over the past quarter century — but some things have not, in either politics or technology. Memory chips still occupy the same paradoxical place in the tech universe: though low margin commodity products in a market subject to vicious cyclical swings, they demand advanced design and manufacturing techniques and huge capital investment. They are also key components in military systems — the reason that many analysts believe the US is extremely unlikely to approve a formal takeover offer, should it materialise.

One thing that has changed since the 1980s is the global ambition of China’s tech industry. Given its massive share of global electronics manufacturing, building a position in silicon — the key component in most systems — has become a national priority. Some 41 per cent of Micron’s sales are to Chinese manufacturers. China’s attempt to consolidate its position as the world’s electronics manufacturing hub relies, in the long term, on being able to establish a domestic chip industry.

Up to now, the efforts have failed dismally. But Tsinghua’s tentative takeover approach seems to point to a change in strategy that could have implications for China’s involvement in global tech markets far beyond chips.

Chinese companies have often stood accused internationally of copying technology. So joining the free-market takeover game and paying a fair price to acquire the strategic technology of a company like Micron would mark a welcome turn of events, says Mark Anderson, a US tech analyst who has criticised China’s approach to intellectual property. The slow progress made by China’s existing chip industry may explain the boldness of Tsinghua’s move. Shanghai-based semiconductor maker SMIC has represented the most visible attempt at creating a national champion. But it lost a high-profile intellectual property case brought by Taiwan’s TSMC. Nor has licensing technology from US competitors succeeded. Nearly a decade ago, SMIC was granted a licence to IBM’s 45 nanometre chipmaking technology — already, at the time, a technology that was getting long in the tooth.

China’s ability to access more cutting-edge technology may be growing. IBM, for instance, has changed its business model in China when it comes to high-end servers: rather than trying to sell machines based on its Power chip technology, it is now offering to license the technology to Chinese manufacturers. But a full-blown acquisition of a significant international player like Micron would represent a far more ambitious expansion of China’s chip sector. Micron is currently worth almost $20bn, making it a significant bite even by the standards of the takeover wave that has swept through the chip industry this year.

Running a far-flung operation like Micron also would be a significant challenge for a company without a record in global business. Micron’s main facilities are in the US, Singapore and to a lesser degree Japan. Effective management of international businesses like this is a major challenge for Chinese companies looking to move overseas, says Joel Backaler, a business consultant and expert on Chinese international investment.

Given the likely resistance from Washington, a Tsinghua acquisition of Micron looks a stretch. But it could be the first sign that a new phase of Chinese tech expansionism is about to begin.