US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security.
The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems.
The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions.
Photo: Reuters
The Treasury said the “narrow set of technologies is core to the next generation of military, cybersecurity, surveillance and intelligence applications.”
The rules cover technologies such as “cutting-edge code-breaking computer systems or next-generation fighter jets,” US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security Paul Rosen said.
“US investments, including the intangible benefits like managerial assistance and access to investment and talent networks that often accompany such capital flows, must not be used to help countries of concern develop their military, intelligence and cyber capabilities,” he added.
The move is part of a broader push to prevent US know-how from helping China develop sophisticated technology and dominate global markets.
US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo earlier this year said that the rules were crucial to prevent China from developing military-related technologies.
The new rules contain a carve-out allowing US investment in publicly traded securities, but the officials said the US already has authorities under a previous executive order barring buying and selling of securities of certain designated Chinese companies.
The US House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party has criticized major US index providers for directing billions of dollars from US investors into stocks of Chinese companies that the US believes are facilitating the development of China’s military.
The select committee has also urged the US Department of Commerce to examine national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology, a fast-developing field that could speed up AI.
At its core, silicon photonics relies on light, rather than electrical signals, to move information inside of computer systems and has uses in AI systems where tens of thousands of computer chips are connected.
“The dual-use nature of photonics technology makes it particularly susceptible to military end-use diversion by problematic actors,” US representatives John Moolenaar and Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote in their letter on Monday.
“We’ve received the letter and will respond through the appropriate channels,” a commerce department spokesperson said.
China has been aggressively pursuing the technology, with Guangdong Province in the past few weeks joining a spate of funding programs aimed at building photonics chips in China, state media said.
“China has been perhaps the quickest state actor to mobilize the resources and encourage local and regional governments to work on photonic technology,” said Sunny Cheung (張崑陽), an associate fellow for China studies with the Jamestown Foundation who has studied China’s efforts in the field.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US