Chinese Firms Asking US Exporters to Certify Products as Micron-Free, Industry Official Says

China’s recent restrictions on Micron products are having broader than expected consequences for U.S. exporters, a trade industry conference heard last week, and may portend how future Chinese retaliatory actions will affect U.S. companies.

Although Beijing’s restrictions, announced against the U.S. chip firm in May (see 2305220053), block only Chinese companies involved in certain information technology infrastructure projects from buying Micron products, additional Chinese businesses are also complying with the ban, said April Snyder-Bolden, a manager in IBM’s export regulation office. This has created transactional challenges, she said, particularly as more Chinese companies ask U.S. exporters to certify that their shipments don’t contain Micron products.

Part of the challenge stems from the lack of clarity surrounding the definition of a Chinese operator of critical IT infrastructure, Snyder-Bolden said during the American Association of Exporters and Importers’ annual conference in Washington last week. “It's not well defined,” she said, adding that some companies take a “very narrow interpretation of that definition,” while others have a “more broad” view.

“And what we've started to see is companies in China, who you would not consider to fall under this category,” are looking to avoid Micron products altogether, Snyder-Bolden said. Some have started “to say, ‘well, we also want to comply with this rule, so you need to give us a certification that your products don't contain Micron.’”

She noted the restrictions came out only last month, so “you're starting to basically see it trickle down to others in China concerned with this.” IBM is “still trying to work through this” and is speaking with other companies “to understand how they're interpreting it.”

“This is seen as a retaliatory action from the Oct. 7 rules,” Snyder-Bolden said, referring to the sweeping China-related chip controls announced by the Commerce Department last year (see 2210070049). U.S. lawmakers have criticized the Micron ban for being politically driven (see 2305240002), while others called on Commerce to use its Entity List and potentially its anti-boycott regulations to respond (see 2306020053).

“I don't know if we'll see any other cases like this against U.S. companies,” Snyder-Bolden said, “but it is something that is having an impact, and it's still really being assessed on how much of an impact it’s going to be.”