The U.S. government’s Department of Commerce decided Friday to add dozens of companies with Chinese military backgrounds, including China’s largest semiconductor company, Semiconductor Manufacturing International, to its list of entities. This is the latest countermeasure taken by the U.S. to curb Chinese companies from using U.S. technology to help the Chinese people’s liberation according to improve their military power.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Commerce said at a news conference on Friday (Dec. 18) that most of the companies included in the list of entities this time are Chinese companies. They are playing an increasingly important role in assisting the Chinese military to improve its military capabilities.
The list of entities includes 77 companies and their affiliates, 60 of which are Chinese companies.
A Commerce Department spokesman said there is evidence that many Chinese companies are involved in the development and manufacture of missiles and ballistic missiles for the Chinese military, helping to expand its militarization of the South China Sea. “We cannot sit back and watch our adversaries use our technology to help the Chinese military increase its military power,” he said.
With SMIC on the entity list, it will be restricted in its purchases of certain U.S. technologies. It must require U.S. exporters to submit export license applications to the U.S. government. Any goods used to produce chips at or below 10 nanometers are unlikely to pass muster. The U.S. government would not in principle allow such advanced technology to be exported to SMIC and, through it, support China’s civil-military integration program.
“We will not allow advanced U.S. technology to be used to help our increasingly aggressive adversaries develop their military forces,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Ross said in a statement.
Ross said the relationship between SMIC and China’s military-industrial complex is “troubling.” SMIC “perfectly” demonstrates the risks posed by China’s use of U.S. technology for military modernization.
For its part, China reacted strongly to the U.S. action. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday that the United States should opt for dialogue and consultation with China instead of “unacceptable” unilateral sanctions against Chinese companies.
Wang urged the United States to stop overusing the concept of national security and the practice of “arbitrarily suppressing Chinese companies. Wang also urged the United States to “replace sanctions with dialogue and consultation.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin expressed “resolute opposition” to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision at a press conference the same day. He called the decision “another example of the U.S. using state power to suppress Chinese companies.
Wang said the U.S. approach “not only harms the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, but also does not meet the interests of U.S. enterprises, and will seriously interfere with normal scientific and technological exchanges and trade between the two countries and the world, and cause damage to the global industrial chain, supply chain and value chain.”
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