The Trump administration announced on Friday that it had added Chinese computer chip maker Smic to an export blacklist, restricting the company's access to high-end U.S. technologies due to its alleged ties to the Chinese military.
Washington has often used this blacklist, which now includes a few hundred companies and subsidiaries based in China, to reach the main Chinese industries.
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“
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has added China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to the list of entities,
” the Commerce Department said in a statement, noting that the move was intended to "
protect the national security of the United States
".
Concretely, this designation prevents companies from exporting technologies of American origin to the companies concerned without a license.
Washington added a provision that effectively prohibits Smic from acquiring technology to build chips with circuits 10 nanometers and smaller, which is the best class of chips in the industry.
"
We will not allow advanced US technology to help develop the army of an increasingly belligerent adversary
," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in the statement.
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The move is a way of putting pressure on the chipmaker, a national champion who has received billions of dollars in state support and who is at the heart of Beijing's efforts to improve the country's self-sufficiency in critical technologies. .
Wilbur Ross puts forward as proof the relationship of Smic with the military-industrial complex and state subsidies.
“
SMIC perfectly illustrates the risks of China's influence on American technology to support its military modernization,
” he insisted.
The Commerce Department also points out that its Bureau of Industry and Security has added "
more than sixty other entities to the list of entities for actions deemed contrary to national security or the interests of foreign policy of the United States. United States
”.
These include entities in China "
which allow human rights violations, which have supported militarization and illegal maritime claims in the South China Sea, entities which have acquired original components. in support of the programs of the People's Liberation Army, as well as entities and individuals who have engaged in the theft of American trade secrets
, ”the ministry explains.
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