China Warns US Against Possible New Export Controls on Chip Firms

China’s Commerce Ministry urged the U.S. against placing new export controls on companies linked to Huawei after hearing the U.S. is reportedly considering adding them to the Commerce Department’s Entity List.

“China urges the United States not to take wrong actions and will take necessary measures as appropriate to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” a ministry spokesperson said during a March 21 news conference, according to an unofficial translation.

A March 20 Bloomberg report said the Biden administration is considering targeting Chinese semiconductor firms that may have helped Huawei in its semiconductor breakthrough last year, when it announced its new Mate 60 Pro+ smartphone using a 7 nanometer chip (see 2309190052 and 2309120005). The report said some of the companies that could be subject to new export controls or other restrictions include chipmakers Qingdao Si’En, SwaySure and Shenzhen Pensun Technology Co., or PST, as well as ​​China’s top memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. “No final decisions have been made,” the report said.

The ministry spokesperson said the U.S. in recent years has “abused export control measures and suppressed Chinese companies with unreasonable sanctions, seriously disrupting the global industrial and supply chains and harming others and itself.”

A BIS spokesperson declined to comment.