China is planning to speed up its efforts to build a legion of talent and win the battle to develop homegrown technologies, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) pledged at the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade National Congress on Sunday, but new US restrictions issued a week earlier are already undercutting those plans.
The latest salvo of sanctions by US President Joe Biden’s administration includes restrictions on so-called US persons supporting the development, production or use of integrated circuits at some chip plants in China.
Effective from Wednesday last week, the measures are broad enough to encompass holders of US green cards, as well as US residents and citizens, capturing a wide swath of senior executives at Chinese semiconductor firms.
Foreign-born designers and engineers, along with Chinese with foreign passports or residency, have long played an instrumental role in the nation’s technological development.
In consumer electronics, Huawei Technologies Co (華為) accelerated its efforts to catch up to the iPhone by hiring former Apple Inc creative director Abigail Brody as its chief designer in 2015. The company also recruited internationally to build up its in-house chip and audio engineering and 5G wireless technology.
Six of the seven key research and development executives of China’s leading semiconductor equipment maker Piotech Inc (拓荊科技) are US citizens, it said in its Star Markets filing early this year.
Many in Piotech’s top management, including its chairman and general manager, are also Americans.
Previously, US measures to rein in China’s ascent have focused on a particular technology — such as banning Huawei from accessing advanced chipmaking by the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) — but the new personnel restriction aims to deprive China of a deep pool of experience obtained in the US.
“The control on ‘US person’ is the biggest surprise to us from the announcement,” Bernstein analysts, including Stacy Rasgon, wrote. “Some Chinese companies have been progressing better, often thanks to founding members or executives bringing their experience from years of working in the US. Many of them hence are US citizens or green card holders.”
Anyone falling under the classification now requires a license to continue working in China or in support of chipmakers there, with a heavy burden of proof to show that their work will not go toward military end uses.
Given the variety of applications for any given semiconductor, it is challenging for Americans to prove that they would not be aiding China’s military, Bernstein said.
Firms such as Dutch chip equipment maker ASML Holding NV have now prohibited US staff from supporting Chinese customers, dashing hopes in Beijing that international chip industry players would remain neutral.
Meanwhile, Beijing-based semiconductor equipment maker Naura Technology Group Co (北方華創科技集團) has told its US employees in China to withdraw from component and machinery development to comply with Washington’s restrictions, the South China Morning Post reported.
Citigroup Inc analysts said in a note about the new set of US rules that Naura and fellow domestic chipmaking gear provider Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc (中微半導體設備) “both believe that even though it applies to their staffs with US citizenship or Green Cards, those staffs should still be allowed to participate in the development or production of mature-node ICs.”
Still, the US curbs are a roadblock for China’s bid to achieve technological self-sufficiency. The measures not only cut the country’s access to advanced chips used in supercomputers and artificial intelligence research, such as those provided by Nvidia Corp, but also impede the arrival of researchers and engineers capable of designing such systems within its borders.
DOLLAR CHALLENGE: BRICS countries’ growing share of global GDP threatens the US dollar’s dominance, which some member states seek to displace for world trade US president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100 percent tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the US dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRICS alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. While the US dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed
LIMITED MEASURES: The proposed restrictions on Chinese chip exports are weaker than previously considered, following lobbying by major US firms, sources said US President Joe Biden’s administration is weighing additional curbs on sales of semiconductor equipment and artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips to China that would escalate the US crackdown on Beijing’s tech ambitions, but stop short of some stricter measures previously considered, said sources familiar with the matter. The restrictions could be unveiled as soon as next week, said the sources, who emphasized that the timing and contours of the rules have changed several times, and that nothing is final until they are published. The measures follow months of deliberations by US officials, negotiations with allies in Japan and the Netherlands, and
Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) yesterday said it expects any impact of new tariffs from US president-elect Donald Trump to hit the company less than its rivals, citing its global manufacturing footprint. Young Liu (劉揚偉), chairman of the contract manufacturer and key Apple Inc supplier, told reporters after a forum in Taipei that it saw the primary impact of any fresh tariffs falling on its clients because its business model is based on contract manufacturing. “Clients may decide to shift production locations, but looking at Foxconn’s global footprint, we are ahead. As a result, the impact on us is likely smaller compared to
TECH COMPETITION: The US restricted sales of two dozen types of manufacturing equipment and three software tools, and blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities US President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled new restrictions on China’s access to vital components for chips and artificial intelligence (AI), escalating a campaign to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions. The US Department of Commerce slapped additional curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and chipmaking gear, including that produced by US firms at foreign facilities. It also blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities that it accused of acting on Beijing’s behalf, although it did not name them in an initial statement. Full details on the new sanctions and Entity List additions were to be published later yesterday, a US official said. The US “will
RSS