Huawei’s 7 nanometer chip smartphone breakthrough earlier this year (see 2309120005, 2309150020 and 2309190052) signals that although China hasn’t yet reached the “global state of the art for semiconductor manufacturing,” the “gap between the peak technological level of China and that of the rest of the world has shrunk” despite U.S. export controls, said Gregory Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent an interim final rule for interagency review this week that could update U.S. export controls on certain semiconductor manufacturing items and make modifications to the Entity List. The rule was sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Oct. 4. A BIS spokesperson declined to comment about what the rule will entail.
The Bureau of Industry and Security completed a round of interagency review for a final rule that would implement export control changes and updates agreed to during the 2022 Wassenaar Arrangement cycle. The rule was sent for review July 18 (see 2307190015), with the review completed Sept. 29.
The Bureau of Industry and Security recently completed rounds of interagency reviews for two final rules that could align its controls with multilateral export control bodies. The first, completed Sept. 20, would align its regulations with certain changes made by the multilateral Australia Group. The second, completed Sept. 26, would align the agency's export controls with changes recently made by the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime. The Australia Group rule (see 2308280013) and the MTCR rule were both sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Aug. 25 (see 2308280014).
LONDON -- Gyorgy Molnar, head of the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement secretariat, said he is “cautiously optimistic” the regime will be able to agree to more export control proposals this year as opposed to the prior year. Molnar didn’t specifically name Russia but said a “number” of proposals last year “were blocked by one participating state.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is issuing a technical correction to the Export Administration Regulations and clarifying its rules that cover releases of certain software, the agency said in a final rule issued last week. The rule, effective Sept. 18, clarifies an “ambiguity” in the EAR and notes that releases of software include both source code and object code “for purposes of transfer of access information.” The change will “eliminate potential uncertainty that the § 734.15 definition of 'release' limits § 734.19 to only controlling transfers of access information that release source code, rather than both source code and object code,” BIS said.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls last week issued two new risk compliance matrices, one for businesses and one for universities, to help them comply with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The matrices, which have been under work at DDTC since at least November (see 2211100023), are meant to guide exporters, manufacturers, researchers, academics and others through an assessment of their ITAR export control risks. DDTC said that after using the documents to conduct an ITAR risk assessment, organizations and researchers should “use that data to create an effective and tailored ITAR compliance program and allocate resources as appropriate to prioritize and mitigate those risks.”
The State Department published a final rule in the Federal Register this week to officially extend relaxed export restrictions for certain defense goods and services involving Cyprus. The agency announced last month that it planned to renew the measures (see 2308210013), which were first introduced in a September 2020 rule that amended the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to relax restrictions surrounding exports of nonlethal defense goods and services to Cyprus, and also eased restrictions on reexports, retransfers and temporary imports (see 2009020045). The agency has extended the rule each year since (see 2209190009 and 2211210028). The latest renewal, effective Oct. 1, expires Sept. 30, 2024.
The Commerce Department is looking into whether a Chinese-made chip powering Huawei's latest smartphone was made or acquired through means that violated U.S. export controls, an agency official said this week. “We are working to obtain more information on the character and composition of the purported 7nm chip” included in Huawei’s new Mate 60 Pro+ smartphone, the official said. The Chinese telecommunications company announced the new phone during Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s trip to China earlier this month.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is still “developing” a rule that will expand the agency’s restrictions on certain activities that support foreign military, security or intelligence services, Hillary Hess, the agency’s regulatory policy director, said during a Sept. 12 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The rule, hailed by one lawmaker as the “largest expansion of presidential export control authority in several years,” will implement a provision in the FY 2023 defense spending bill that will allow BIS to expand its U.S. persons controls to capture certain sensitive services to foreign intelligence agencies (see 2212210032).