WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States added dozens of Chinese companies, including the country’s leading SMIC chip makers and Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., to a commercial blacklist Friday while the president’s administration United States Donald Trump is stepping up pressure on China in his final weeks in office.
Reuters first reported the addition of SMIC and dozens of additional companies on Friday. The move is seen as the latest in Republican Trump’s efforts to consolidate his tough legacy against China as part of a long struggle between Washington and Beijing over trade and numerous economic problems.
The U.S. Department of Commerce said the action against SMIC “derives from China’s civil-civil merger (MCF) doctrine and evidence of activities between SMIC and troubled entities in the Chinese military industrial complex.”
The department also said it was adding the world’s largest DJI drone company to the list along with AGCU Scientech; China’s national scientific instruments and materials and the Kuang-Chi Group to allegedly allow “large-scale human rights abuses in China through abusive genetic collection and analysis or high-tech surveillance.”
Companies did not comment immediately.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the department “would not allow U.S. advanced technology to help build the army of an increasingly belligerent adversary.”
Ross said the government would allegedly deny licenses to prevent SMIC from accessing the technology to produce semiconductors at advanced technology levels: 10 nanometers or less.
China’s Minister of State Wang Yi, who is also the country’s foreign minister, on Friday addressed the speech to the Asian Society, which noted the extensive list of U.S. sanctions and called on Washington to stop their “arbitrary suppression” of Chinese companies.
The Commerce Department published a list of 77 companies and subsidiaries in the so-called list of entities, including 60 Chinese companies. Reuters previously reported that the department added about 80 companies, most of them Chinese.
China’s Foreign Ministry said that, if true, the blacklist would be evidence of US oppression of Chinese companies and that Beijing would continue to take “the necessary steps” to protect its rights.
“We urge the U.S. to stop its misbehavior of unjustified oppression of foreign companies,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news conference in Beijing on Friday.
SMIC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Commerce Department’s designations include some entities in China that allow alleged human rights abuses and some that help it build and militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea, the agency said.
He also cited entities that acquired items of American origin in support of People’s Liberation Army programs and entities and individuals that participated in the theft of U.S. trade secrets.
Companies that have been added earlier to the list include telecommunications team giants Huawei Technologies Co. and 150 subsidiaries, and ZTE Corp. for sanctions violations, as well as surveillance camera maker Hikvision for suppression of the Uyghur minority in China.
FRAY TIES
Shares of SMIC, formally Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., fell 5.2% in Hong Kong on Friday, while the company’s Shanghai listed shares fell 1.8%. Benchmark indices in both markets fell by less than 1%.
SMIC had already been in Washington’s sights.
In September, the Commerce Department ordered suppliers of certain equipment from the company to apply for export licenses after concluding that there was an “unacceptable risk” that the equipment supplied to it could be used for purposes. military.
Last month, the Department of Defense added the company to a blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies, effectively banning U.S. investors from buying its shares as of the end of next year.
SMIC has repeatedly said it has nothing to do with the Chinese military.
The designation of the list of entities will force SMIC to apply for a special license from the Department of Commerce before a U.S. supplier can send it key goods, part of the administration to curb its access to sophisticated manufacturing technology. chips from the United States.
The Department of Commerce added nearly a dozen SMIC-affiliated companies to the list of entities.
SMIC is the largest Chinese chip manufacturer, but follows Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the market leader in the industry. Attempts have been made to build foundries for the manufacture of computer chips that can compete with those of TSMC.
Ties between Washington and Beijing have grown increasingly antagonistically over the past year, as the world’s two largest economies faced Beijing’s manipulation of the coronavirus outbreak, the imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong. Kong and rising tensions in the South China Sea.
Report by David Shepardson and Alexandra Alper; Additional reports by Humeyra Pamuk, Mike Stone, Karen Freifeld, Tom Daly Gabriel Crossley and Tom Westbrook; Written by Humeyra Pamuk and David Shepardson; Edited by William Mallard, Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis