China protests American ‘technological blockade’ amid semiconductor battle – Breaking Defense
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U.S. President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an Executive Order on the economy in the State Dining Room of the White House on February 24, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images)
PARIS — The Chinese government accused the US of “hegemonic and bullying practices” today after reports emerged that Washington had pressured the Netherlands to restrict the export of machinery involved in the production of semiconductors.
“China opposes the US’s overstretching the national security concept and using all sorts of pretexts to coerce other countries into joining its technological blockade against China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters. “Semiconductor is a highly globalized industry. In a deeply integrated world economy, the US’s hegemonic and bullying practices seriously violate international trade rules, undermine the global semiconductor industry structure, impact the security and stability of the international industrial and supply chains, and will surely boomerang.”
The Dutch firm ASML said in a statement Monday that shipping licenses for machinery had been “partially revoked by the Dutch government, impacting a small number of customers in China.” The company said it had discussions with the US government about recent export rules that affect the machinery, known as lithography systems, and is “fully committed” to complying with relevant laws.
The company referred specifically to new export rules announced on Oct. 17 by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that were designed to “update export controls on advanced computing semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, as well as items that support supercomputing applications and end-uses, to arms embargoed countries, including the PRC [People’s Republic of China]…,” according to a Commerce fact sheet [PDF].
“Advanced AI capabilities — facilitated by supercomputing, built on advanced semiconductors — present U.S. national security concerns because they can be used to improve the speed and accuracy of military decision making, planning, and logistics. They can also be used for cognitive electronic warfare, radar, signals intelligence, and jamming,” the fact sheet said.
In addition to a massive and expensive effort to spur domestic semiconductor production, the Biden administration has taken a number of steps to try and keep the most advanced technology out of China’s hands.
In December, Raimondo told a gathering of defense officials and industry leaders that the US is taking a “very aggressive, innovative approach” to combating China’s tech strategy, especially when it comes to chips that facilitate artificial intelligence.
“We’re a couple of years ahead of China. No way are we gonna let them catch up. We cannot let them catch up. So we’re gonna deny them our most cutting edge technology,” she said at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “I’ll tell you, this stuff — when I say this stuff, I mean supercomputing, AI technology, AI chips — in the wrong hands is as deadly as any weapon that we could provide. And so we have to be serious if we’re going to meet that threat, serious about enforcement.”
Topics: Asia, China, Indo-Pacific, semiconductors
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