The U.S. and the Netherlands are planning this month to hold a new round of discussions on export controls, including restrictions to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductor technologies, Bloomberg reported Nov. 2. Bureau of Industry and Security Undersecretary Alan Estevez will travel to the Netherlands as part of the talks, the report said, as will senior U.S. National Security Council official Tarun Chhabra. The U.S. will try to convince the Netherlands to expand its export controls on shipments of chip technologies to China, the report said, although officials don’t expect an agreement to come from the discussions. The meeting comes as BIS tries to convince allies to join the U.S in imposing new export restrictions designed to restrict China’s ability to acquire advanced computing chips and manufacture advanced semiconductors (see 2210070049). A BIS spokesperson declined to comment, and the White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Chip export news
Qualcomm this week said it’s not affected by the U.S.’s new semiconductor export controls against China (see 2210070049) and that its business operations in the country remain steady. “The latest set of restrictions, we were not impacted by those,” CEO Cristiano Amon said during a Nov. 2 earnings call. “We have seen our business in China continue to expand.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security will likely add more entities involved in China’s supercomputing and semiconductor manufacturing industry to the Entity List, said Thea Kendler, BIS’s assistant secretary for export administration. “We view advanced chip manufacturing and supercomputer activities in China as a national security concern,” Kendler said during a Nov. 2 Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “So I expect that there will be Entity List additions.”
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The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is asking the Commerce Department to provide its licensing data and communications with chip companies, along with a broad swathe of related information, to make sure the agency is implementing its new China controls “fairly across all market players.”
A Republican-backed bill introduced in the House could lead to the transfer of export control authorities from the Commerce Department to the Defense Department. The bill, introduced Oct. 28 by Reps. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Rob Wittman, R-Va., and Greg Steube, R-Fla., includes language critical of the Bureau of Industry and Security, saying the agency has made “little progress” in controlling emerging and foundational technologies under the Export Control Reform Act and that BIS’s export control authorities should be revoked.
Japan has begun “internal discussions” on whether it should join the U.S. in imposing export controls on advanced semiconductors and other technologies destined to China, Nikkei reported Nov. 1. Officials in Tokyo are “weighing which restrictions can be adopted in Japan, and will watch how other U.S. allies such as the European Union and South Korea respond,” the report said. Bureau of Industry and Security Undersecretary Alan Estevez recently said he’s confident U.S. allies will eventually impose similar controls (see 2210270047), which set sweeping new license restrictions to limit China’s ability to acquire advanced computing chips and manufacture advanced semiconductors (see 2210070049).
Nearly a month after the U.S. announced new export controls on advanced computing and semiconductor equipment destined to China, lawyers and companies are still grappling with what they say is a complex set of regulations and are awaiting clearer government guidance on how and whether their activities are covered. The dense regulations, along with lengthy response times from the Bureau of Industry and Security, have caused firms to delay decisions on shipments until they can better understand their risks and BIS’s due diligence requirements, trade attorneys and industry officials said in recent interviews.
The Bureau of Industry and Security published its first set of frequently asked questions on its new China-related export controls (see 2210070049), covering the definition of semiconductor “facility” and offering guidance on certain U.S. persons requirements, license review policies and more.
New U.S. restrictions on semiconductor exports to China likely will have a “truly devastating impact” on China’s access to advanced semiconductors within the next three years, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in an Oct. 27 report. Even though China has been expecting the controls and has stockpiled some chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, those stockpiles will eventually “dwindle” and the country “will likely be forced to step backward in technological time and use less advanced chips that the industry has long since moved past,” the report said.