The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has released a new export control list that includes measures to prevent China from using certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world on American equipment, expanding its efforts to slow Beijing’s pace of technological and military progress.
The new rules, some of which are effective immediately, follow restrictions sent this year in letters to major chip tool makers, effectively requiring them to stop supplying equipment to wholly-owned Chinese factories that make advanced chips.
The new measures could mark the biggest shift in US technology export policy to China since the 1990s.
This threatens to set China’s chip industry back several years, forcing US and foreign companies using US technology to cut subsidies to some of China’s leading chip manufacturers and designers.
At a press briefing Thursday to review the new rules, senior government officials said many of the rules are intended to prevent foreign companies from selling advanced chips to China or to give Chinese companies the tools to manufacture their own advanced chips.
But they admitted that they have not yet received any promises from the allies to implement such measures, noting that discussions with these countries are ongoing in this regard.
“We know that the unilateral controls we are implementing will lose their effectiveness over time unless other countries join us,” one official said.
“We also risk damaging US technology leadership if foreign competitors do not adhere to similar controls.”
The new rules also severely restrict exports of U.S. equipment to Chinese memory chip makers and formalize letters sent to companies including Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices to restrict exports to China of chips used in supercomputing systems that countries around the world rely on. for the development of nuclear weapons and other military technologies.
Source: El Iktisad
