US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to put Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (長江存儲) and more than 30 other Chinese companies on a trade blacklist that would prevent them from buying certain US components, deepening tensions between the world’s two economic superpowers.
The US Department of Commerce is to add China’s leading maker of memory chips and the others to the so-called Entity List as early as this week, said a person familiar with deliberations who asked not to be named discussing a sensitive matter.
Companies on the Entity List are blocked from buying technology from US suppliers unless they get a special export license from the commerce department.
The move would represent the latest escalation in the US-China conflict over technology. The Biden administration unveiled a sweeping set of restrictions on China’s ability to buy semiconductors and chipmaking equipment in October, putting Yangtze Memory and other companies on a list for further scrutiny at the time.
Yangtze Memory, based in Wuhan, is the nation’s largest 3D NAND semiconductor maker, producing memory chips that go into smartphones and other computing devices in competition with the likes of Samsung Electronics Co.
The firm had been in talks to supply Apple Inc, which would have marked a significant step for China’s tech industry, but that has since been put on hold.
US officials imposed the latest chip restrictions by explaining that they are necessary to stop China from becoming more of an economic and military menace. The Biden administration wants to ensure that Chinese chipmakers do not secure the capability to make advanced semiconductors that would bolster Beijing’s military.
US lawmakers have also introduced legislation that could cut Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and other foreign firms from the world’s largest financial system, in the latest attempt to curb China’s technological ambitions.
The US Senate bill, whose sponsors include US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, would ban US companies from participating in significant transactions with foreign firms that produce 5G technology and engage in industrial espionage. If Huawei were so designated, it would effectively halt its access to US banks.
“We cannot allow Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Americans’ personal data and our country’s most sensitive defense systems,” US Senator Tom Cotton said. “We must address the dire threat these Chinese companies pose to our national security.”
Last month, the US Federal Communications Commission barred Huawei and other telecoms, including ZTE Corp (中興), from selling electronics in the US on grounds they posed risks to data security.
US lawmakers are also seeking to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok, which the FBI has warned could control millions of users’ software, steal information, launch hacking attacks or conduct influence operations.
China has sharply criticized the US moves, and this week filed a dispute with the WTO trying to overturn US-imposed trade controls, saying they would disrupt global trade and supply chains.
Separately, Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) cannot buy some of the most advanced chip designs after the Softbank Group Corp-owned British chip tech firm Arm Ltd determined that the US and Britain would not approve licenses to export technology to China, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
This is the first known time that Arm has decided it could not export its most cutting-edge designs to China, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The British chip tech firm concluded that the US and the UK would not approve the sale of its latest Neoverse V series because the performance was too high, it said.
Arm earlier this year launched its next generation of data center chip technology called Neoverse V2 to meet the explosive growth of data from 5G and Internet-connected gadgets.
Over the past year, Arm has released several new core designs, including Neoverse N2, and Neoverse V1 and V2, the latter of which are the highest-performance cores to date, the report said.
Chinese firms have been blocked from purchasing Neoverse V2 and its previous generation V1, because of US and UK export controls that are connected to technologies listed under Wassenaar, an agreement that limits the movement of “dual-use” technologies sought for both peaceful and military purposes, the report said, citing people briefed on the reasoning behind the move.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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