Two key Republican lawmakers on Tuesday urged US President Donald Trump’s administration to bolster new rules adopted on Friday last week aimed at preventing China’s biggest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), from gaining access to advanced US technology.
US Senator Marco Rubio and US Representative Michael McCaul wrote in a letter that the Entity List designation by the US Department of Commerce was not strict enough and should be rewritten to close “dangerous loopholes that would allow nearly all sales to SMIC to continue without restriction and support the [Chinese Communist Party’s] stated goal of military preeminence.”
They said that they were concerned that without changes the rules would be “utterly ineffective in addressing this growing national security threat.”
The department declined to comment, but US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Friday last week said the designation was a “necessary measure to ensure that China, through its national champion SMIC, is not able to leverage US technologies to enable indigenous advanced technology levels to support its destabilizing military activities.”
The lawmakers are concerned because the restrictions apply only to technology “uniquely” required to produce semiconductors at 10-nanometers and below.
Washington “seems to be allowing SMIC access to nearly all semiconductor manufacturing equipment,” the lawmakers wrote.
They said that they were concerned the new rules were “done for show and parochial commercial interests at the expense of US national security.”
SMIC on Sunday said being put on a US trade blacklist would significantly affect research and development in its 10-nanometer and more advanced chip technology, but said that it did not expect the US decision to have a major negative impact on its short-term operations and finances.
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