US lawmakers are pressing the administration of US President Joe Biden to block Huawei Technologies Co (華為) suppliers from buying American chipmaking gear, escalating efforts to prevent the sanctioned Chinese telecom giant from making progress on semiconductor manufacturing.
The top lawmakers on the US House of Representatives China Select Committee outlined their concerns in a letter on Wednesday to US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, whose agency oversees export controls on advanced chips and manufacturing tools.
They pointed to Chinese firms Shenzhen Pengxinxu Technology Co (鵬新旭), Shenzhen SwaySure Technology Co (昇維旭), Qingdao Sien Technology Co (青島思恩) Pengxinxu and “potentially many others” as likely members of Huawei’s “clandestine network,” citing Bloomberg reporting.
Photo: Bloomberg
The US and its allies have broadly blocked sales of the most advanced chips and manufacturing gear to China, including from three US firms — Applied Materials Inc, Lam Research Corp and KLA Corp — as well as Dutch lithography system maker ASML Holding NV and Japanese toolmaker Tokyo Electron Ltd.
Washington has also imposed additional sanctions on a host of Chinese companies, including Huawei and Shanghai-based partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯), that bar purchases of American technology without a US government license.
Chinese companies not on the so-called entity list can still access fairly mature chip equipment without Washington’s approval.
“We must continue in our efforts to deny Huawei, and similar firms, the ability to access US technology,” wrote committee chairman John Moolenaar and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Failing in that effort would only benefit a small number of US chip tool companies “at the expense of chipmakers worldwide who cannot sell their chips, undermining the intent of the Huawei listing, and harm our national security,” they said.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday that her country opposed “the US overstretching the concept of national security, setting barriers and undermining normal cooperation between the two countries.”
The goal of the US-led campaign is to prevent China from developing a cutting-edge semiconductor industry that could benefit its military.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS