WASHINGTON—On Friday, the Biden administration announced sweeping new restrictions on the sale of semiconductor technology to China. This is a step aimed at undermining Beijing’s ability to access critical technology needed for everything from supercomputing to guided weapons.
The move is the clearest sign of an increasingly dangerous confrontation in the technological arena between the world’s two major superpowers, and the U.S. is vital to China’s military and economic ambitions. seeks to establish dominance in advanced computing and semiconductor technology.
The set of restrictions announced by the Department of Commerce are primarily aimed at slowing the progress of China’s military program activities.
Alan Estevez, undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said his office works to prevent classified technology for military use from being acquired by China’s military, intelligence and security services.
“The threat landscape is constantly changing, and we are updating our policy today to ensure we are addressing the challenges posed by China, while continuing outreach and coordination with our allies and partners.” he said. China.
The rules, which appear to impose the broadest export controls in a decade, similar to the Trump administration’s crackdown on telecom giant Huawei, have affected dozens of Chinese companies, tech experts say. It seems to span a wider range because it gives The Trump administration’s approach was seen as aggressive but disastrous, but by contrast, the rule would halt technology exports to various Chinese tech companies, leaving China to produce the advanced chips themselves. appear to establish a more inclusive policy that cuts off the emerging capacity of
“It is an aggressive approach by the U.S. government to actually begin to undermine China’s ability to develop these key technologies on its own,” said Emily Kilkries., Senior Fellow at think tank, Center for a New American Security.
Companies will not be able to supply advanced computing chips, chip manufacturing equipment and other products to China without special licenses. Most of these licenses are denied, but certain shipments to facilities operated by U.S. companies or allies will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, senior government officials said at a briefing on Thursday.
The regulation limits U.S. exports of cutting-edge chips called graphics processing units used to power artificial intelligence applications and imposes broad restrictions on chips destined for Chinese supercomputers. The rule also prohibits US companies that manufacture equipment used to make advanced logic and memory chips from selling their equipment to China without a license.
Perhaps most importantly, the Biden administration has imposed wide-ranging international restrictions so that if chips used for artificial intelligence or supercomputing are made with US technology, software, or machines, the world will companies are prohibited from selling in China. This restriction used what is known as the Foreign Direct Products Rule, the last used by former President Donald J. Trump to cripple Huawei.
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Another Foreign Direct Products Rule requires that a wide range of products manufactured outside the United States using US technology be sent to 28 Chinese companies on the “Entity List” due to national security concerns. Prohibited.
These companies include Beijing Sensetime Technology Development Co, a division of China’s leading artificial intelligence company SenseTime. It also includes Dahua Technology, Higon, IFLYTEK, Megvii Technology, Sugon, Tianjian Phytium Information Technology, Sunway Microelectronics, Yitu Technologies, and various laboratories and research institutes associated with universities and the Chinese government.
The rule also restricts US citizens from helping China’s semiconductor industry develop to an advanced level. Earlier on Friday, the administration announced it would add 31 more Chinese companies and institutions to its “unidentified list.” This limits the ability to acquire a smaller set of certain regulated US items. Among them is Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd, a major memory chip manufacturer owned by Apple. . Considering procurement of some products.
Whether the Chinese government will respond remains to be seen. Sam Sachs, a senior fellow at Yale Law School who studies China’s technology policy, said the new rules would force the Chinese government to adhere to U.S. rules but want to keep its operations in China. He said it could come to impose restrictions on U.S. companies and companies in other countries.
“The question is whether this new package crosses the line and provokes an unprecedented response,” she said. “I expect a lot of people will.
The move comes at a particularly sensitive time for Beijing. China’s leaders will hold a major political meeting starting Oct. 16, with President Xi Jinping expected to secure a third term, making him the longest-serving regime leader since Mao Zedong.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the United States is “using its technological prowess to its advantage to hinder and stifle the development of emerging market and developing countries.”
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“The US probably wants China and other developing countries to stay at the bottom of the industrial chain,” he added.
Although the Chinese government has invested heavily in building its semiconductor industry, it still lags the United States, Taiwan and South Korea in its ability to produce cutting-edge chips. In other areas, such as artificial intelligence, China is no longer far behind the United States, but most of these technologies rely on advanced chips designed or manufactured by companies outside of China.
Jack Dongara, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee, said some of China’s most advanced supercomputers rely on chips made by California-based Intel or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. said there is. new rules.
At a press conference, senior government officials said the measures would be limited to cutting-edge chips and would not have broader commercial implications for private Chinese companies. However, they acknowledged that it could become more restrictive over time, given that technology will start to overtake them.
Industry executives say many Chinese industries that rely on artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms are using now-limited U.S. graphics processing units to power these capabilities. These include companies working in technologies such as self-driving cars and gene sequencing, artificial intelligence company SenseTime, and ByteDance, the Chinese internet company that owns TikTok.
The new restrictions on the sale of semiconductor manufacturing equipment are also expected to put pressure on the business of domestic semiconductor makers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., Changjiang Memory Technology and Changxin Memory Technology.
The actual impact of restrictions depends on how the policy is implemented. For most measures, the Commerce Department says it has discretion to grant companies special licenses to continue selling restricted products to China, but most will be denied.
Some Republican lawmakers and Chinese hawks are criticized for allowing U.S. companies to continue to sell classified technology to China even when national security may be at stake. has criticized the department for being too aggressive in issuing such licenses.
“If you want to stop it, you can stop it,” said Derek Scissors, a senior researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. “When we create a licensing requirement, we declare to the world that we don’t want it to stop. We’re just pretending.”
If Republicans regain a majority in the House after the midterm elections, giving up their right to continue selling products to China could come under more scrutiny.
Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCall intends to use his powers as a current key member of the House Foreign Relations Committee to pressure the Bureau of Industry and Security, which reviews such licenses, over the application and decision. said.
“If Congress finds that the BIS is undermining the spirit of these rules with its lax licensing standards, we will assess whether the Department of Commerce is an appropriate home for this national security agency,” McCall said. said.
China, with its vast ecosystem of factories, remains a huge and lucrative market for US chip exports. This little piece of technology is crucial for smartphones, laptops, coffee makers, cars and other products Chinese factories produce for domestic consumption and export to the world.
Many American companies have long argued that sales to China are an important source of revenue, allowing them to reinvest in research and development and remain competitive.
But doing business with China has become much more difficult over the past few years as tensions between the United States and China turned into Cold War competition. It seeks to use Chinese companies specializing in areas such as technology, quantum computing, etc. to facilitate its military modernization and blur the lines between its defense sector and civilian industry.
China’s military exercises aimed at intimidating Taiwan and China’s ties with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have helped extinguish goodwill toward China in Washington and strengthened its claims of technology regulation.
Still, industry executives and some analysts say that decoupling China from foreign chips will accelerate China’s efforts to develop them itself, unless other countries impose similar restrictions, and U.S. companies are the cause of losing out to foreign competitors.
The Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday it was assessing the impact of export restrictions on the industry and working with companies to ensure compliance.
“We understand the goal of ensuring national security, and we urge the U.S. government to work with our international partners to enforce rules in a targeted manner, level the playing field, and We urge you to mitigate the unintended harm to our innovations,” it said in a statement. .
In remarks last month, the Biden administration hinted at tougher technology regulations.National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Said The US government’s previous approach of staying several generations ahead of its competitors was no longer sufficient.
“Given the fundamental nature of certain technologies, such as advanced logic and memory chips, we need to maintain as large a lead as possible,” he said.
Kevin Wolfe, a partner at Aiken Gump who led the export control effort during the Obama administration, said the move represents a “fundamental shift in the use of export controls to address broader national security objectives.” change,” he said. Since the Cold War, most countries have had narrower export controls, focusing on controlling specific items needed to manufacture or deploy weapons.
Wolf said the new measures are likely to be very effective in the short and medium term. “How effective they are in the long run will be a function of whether allies ultimately agree to impose similar regulations,” he added.
Edward Wong contributed to the report.