US lawmakers are pressing the administration of US President Joe Biden to block Huawei Technologies Co (華為) suppliers from buying American chipmaking gear, escalating efforts to prevent the sanctioned Chinese telecom giant from making progress on semiconductor manufacturing.
The top lawmakers on the US House of Representatives China Select Committee outlined their concerns in a letter on Wednesday to US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, whose agency oversees export controls on advanced chips and manufacturing tools.
They pointed to Chinese firms Shenzhen Pengxinxu Technology Co (鵬新旭), Shenzhen SwaySure Technology Co (昇維旭), Qingdao Sien Technology Co (青島思恩) Pengxinxu and “potentially many others” as likely members of Huawei’s “clandestine network,” citing Bloomberg reporting.
Photo: Bloomberg
The US and its allies have broadly blocked sales of the most advanced chips and manufacturing gear to China, including from three US firms — Applied Materials Inc, Lam Research Corp and KLA Corp — as well as Dutch lithography system maker ASML Holding NV and Japanese toolmaker Tokyo Electron Ltd.
Washington has also imposed additional sanctions on a host of Chinese companies, including Huawei and Shanghai-based partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯), that bar purchases of American technology without a US government license.
Chinese companies not on the so-called entity list can still access fairly mature chip equipment without Washington’s approval.
“We must continue in our efforts to deny Huawei, and similar firms, the ability to access US technology,” wrote committee chairman John Moolenaar and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Failing in that effort would only benefit a small number of US chip tool companies “at the expense of chipmakers worldwide who cannot sell their chips, undermining the intent of the Huawei listing, and harm our national security,” they said.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday that her country opposed “the US overstretching the concept of national security, setting barriers and undermining normal cooperation between the two countries.”
The goal of the US-led campaign is to prevent China from developing a cutting-edge semiconductor industry that could benefit its military.
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