China will allow exports of timber from Australia to enter the country after over two years of restrictions, said Xiao Qian, China's ambassador to Australia, according to a May 17 Reuters report. China halted trade in timber in 2020 after China said it found pests in some shipments (see 2011120007), but Xiao said these concerns were remedied following a study of materials provided by exporters. The lifting of the restrictions follows Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell's visit to Beijing last week.
Exports to China
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is mitigating more investment deals and is hiring more staff to manage its increasing workload, said Paul Rosen, head of CFIUS. Rosen also said the committee is assessing more violations for breaches of mitigation agreements and is “for the first time” beginning to receive voluntary self-disclosures.
Both outbound and a new approach for the Committee for Foreign Investment in the U.S. drew attention at a recent hearing of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and the chairman of the committee suggested that limiting investment screening to active investors, such as venture capital firms, is not enough.
A series of export control indictments announced this week, including several for illegal shipments to China and Russia, only scratched the surface of prosecutions expected to be brought as part of the new Disruptive Technology Strike Force, said Matthew Axelrod, the Bureau of Industry and Security's top export enforcement official. “It’s just the beginning,” Axelrod said during a May 17 law conference hosted by the American Bar Association, Mayer Brown and American University. “I think you can expect to continue to see actions come out from the strike force as this work continues.”
China denounced recent U.S. enforcement actions by the Disruptive Technology Strike Force against various Chinese and Russian individuals for allegedly violating sanctions by conspiring to export technology, trade secrets and aircraft parts 2305160047). A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said May 17 the U.S. "has kept stretching the national security concept to abuse export control regimes and its leading technological advantage," according to a transcript in English of the regular press conference the spokesperson holds with media in Beijing. The spokesperson urged the U.S. to stop suppressing China in the field of technology and using judicial power to target Chinese researchers, adding "China will do what is necessary to firmly safeguard the lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens."
The U.S. should avoid placing export controls on cloud computing services to try to prevent Chinese companies from using a loophole that allows them to access controlled semiconductors, researchers said. Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and the Center for a New American Security explored this strategy in a new report released this week but said export controls don't “appear feasible and may have adverse consequences.”
The Group of 7 countries likely will discuss sanctions, trade and a host of other issues at the upcoming summit in Japan, but the most consequential topic may surround the group’s emerging “de-risking” policy toward China, experts said this week. Several said they expect the G-7 countries to end the summit by releasing more information on the approach, although they also noted that not all Europeans yet agree with the strategy.
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DOJ this week unsealed indictments of six people for trying to illegally ship sensitive items from the U.S., including shipments of dual-use technologies and aircraft parts to Russia, isostatic graphite to Iran and trade secrets to China. The charges are the first enforcement actions brought by the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a group launched by DOJ and the Commerce Department in February to investigate and prosecute criminal export violations (see 2302160019).
The U.S.-European Union Trade and Technology Council could soon begin prioritizing China issues over Russia, which has dominated much of the group’s time since it was established in 2021, said Frances Burwell, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. She also said the TTC should focus more of its energy on investment screening, particularly as both sides consider a new tool to screen certain outbound investments (see 2305110033).