The US Department of Commerce should put trade curbs on Chinese memorychip maker Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT, 長鑫存儲) after Beijing earlier this week banned the sale of some chips by US-based Micron Technology Inc, the chair of the US House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party said on Tuesday.
The restrictions by China’s cyberspace regulator against Micron are the latest in a widening trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
The move by China sparked tough language from key lawmakers and the White House.
Photo: REUTERS
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday that the Chinese announcement on Micron was “not based in fact.”
The White House said the commerce department was “engaged directly” with China over Micron, a maker of memory chips that are essential for products from cell phones to data center servers.
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, also said he is talking to the broader business community and allies about the issue.
US Representative Mike Gallagher, an influential lawmaker whose select committee has pressed the administration of US President Joe Biden to take tougher stances on China, is the only lawmaker so far to call for retaliatory action.
The US “must make clear to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] that it will not tolerate economic coercion against its companies or its allies,” Gallagher said.
“The commerce department should immediately add Changxin Memory Technologies to the entity list and ensure no US technology, regardless of specifications, goes to CXMT, YMTC, or other PRC firms operating in this industry,” he said, referring to Yangtze Memory Technology Corp (長江存儲).
CXMT is China’s leading maker of DRAM memory chips and the domestic competitor most likely to benefit if Micron is barred from China’s massive chip market.
YMTC is a Chinese chipmaker put on the entity list in December last year.
Gallagher also said the commerce department must ensure “no US-export licenses granted to foreign semiconductor memory firms operating in [China] are used to backfill Micron, and our South Korean allies, who have experienced exactly this kind of CCP [Chinese Communist Party] economic coercion firsthand in recent years, should likewise act to prevent backfilling.”
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc, which both operate memorychip factories in China, and other non-Chinese firms were spared the brunt of US export controls on chip manufacturing gear imposed in October last year, but they are operating under exemptions from the US rules that can expire or be revoked.
Analysts believe CXMT’s chips are two to three generations behind industry leaders Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix.
Gallagher’s call came weeks after US makers of chip manufacturing equipment said they received a clarification from US export control authorities that would allow them to ship more tools to China than initially anticipated.
Lam Research Corp, the leading maker of tools for manufacturing memory chips, told investors the clarification could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in additional sales from China. The clarification from the commerce department concerned how memorychip features are measured for the purposes of applying export control rules.
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