- America’s sanctions limiting China’s access to semiconductors criticized
- Huawei and its partners are all subject to different rules
- Letter calls for the preservation of documents for Trump’s analysis
Despite very public efforts to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment, a leading House Republican has accused Biden’s administration of leaving loopholes that companies like Huawei are benefiting from.
The concern comes from none other than Representative John Moolenaar, the chair of the chamber’s China Select Committee, who expressed his concerns in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Acknowledging that some restrictions, like curbs on high-bandwidth memory chips, have been largely successful, Moolenaar argued that other measures have created opportunities for Chinese firms to bypass America’s sanctions, rendering them ineffective.
US restrictions on China deemed ineffective
Moolenaar highlighted rules that impose varied restrictions on different production facilities belonging to Huawei’s chipmaking partner, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC).
He criticized licensing policies allowing “case-by-case” sales to some SMIC facilities in Shanghai despite denying other shipments to its Beijing operations, and questioned why some Huawei-linked firms like Shenzhen Pensun Technology Co and SwaySure are subject to less stringent policies compared to others, such as Qingdao Si’En.
An extract from the letter (via Bloomberg) reads: “There is no national security justification for these loopholes.” All of this, he says, “raise[es] real questions about the culture at [The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security] and why BIS continues to facilitate shipments of US technology.”
Moolenaar has been instrumental to the US’ efforts to limit China’s access to advanced technologies – he and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi were the driving force behind adding many of the latest companies to the so-called entity list, announced earlier this week.
In his letter to Raimondo, Moolenaar is asking the Department of Commerce to “preserve all documents and communications” related to the restrictions so that US President-elect Donald Trump “can properly identify any other loopholes.”
A Commerce spokesperson confirmed receipt of the letter, adding that it “will respond through the appropriate channels.”