Beijing has lodged strong protests with the United States after the outgoing US President Joe Biden strengthened the chip export ban against China in recent moves.
During the final week before handing over his power to Republican President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, Biden made three significant moves against China by
While China’s Foreign Ministry criticized Biden for failing to “have a correct strategy perception and match words with actions,” Chinese media and commentators directly called Biden a “liar” and a “villain.”
“That the Biden administration has been taking the last few days before it leaves office to markedly intensify such blind economic bullying and coercion just exposes a worrying absence of a self-correction mechanism for US policymaking,” the state-owned China Daily said in its editorial on January 15.
“From his first day in office President Biden claimed that he would deal with the United States’ complicated and consequential relations with China in a ‘responsible’ way, but over the past four years he has stuck stubbornly to a highly irresponsible way,” it said.
Meng Yan, a Shanxi-based military columnist, says in an article that Biden has “completely torn off the mask of hypocrisy, revealed a ferocious face and stabbed China time and again since last November.”
“We don’t need to mention how hypocritical and shameless he was in the past. His recent behavior showed that he did not have good deeds and kind thoughts,” Meng says. “He is a villain.”
He says Biden has failed to keep his promises of not seeking to fight a “new Cold War” and change China’s system during this four-year term.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 17 held a phone call with Trump to discuss trade, Taiwan and other issues, Xinhua reported.
Xi told Trump that it is inevitable that China and the US, two major countries with different national conditions, have some differences. He said the key is to respect each other’s core interests and major concerns, and find appropriate ways to solve issues.
“The call was a very good one for both China and the USA,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together and starting immediately.”
He added: “We discussed balancing trade, fentanyl, TikTok and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!”
Biden’s last moves
On January 14, Biden announced the regulatory framework, which will take effect on January 31, to restrict the exports of American AI chips and models.
The regulatory framework will :
- require US companies to apply for export licenses if they ship high-end AI chips to foreign countries other than 18 US allies;
- require companies that are not headquartered in the US or closely allied countries to apply for validated end-user status if they want to purchase US chips for their data centers;
- require US companies to apply for export licenses if they ship any closed-source AI models that have been trained on a high-level of computing power (more than 1026 operations) to foreign countries other than 18 US allies. (“Open-weight” AI models allow developers to build upon and adapt previous work while “closed-source” AI models, such as ChatGPT, keep their code and training data confidential.)
In short, the US will allow unlimited access to its high-end AI technology for America’s closest allies, cap the number of AI chips that can be exported to most countries and forbid China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from obtaining the technology.
“This policy will help build a trusted technology ecosystem around the world and allow us to protect against the national security risks associated with AI, while ensuring controls do not stifle innovation or US technological leadership,” said US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
“We’ve done that with this rule, and it will help safeguard the most advanced AI technology and help ensure it stays out of the hands of our foreign adversaries, while we continue to broadly share the benefits with partner countries.”
This did not go over well in Beijing. “The US keeps overstretching the concept of national security, politicizing and weaponizing trade and tech issues, and using sanctions as a go-to tool,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a media briefing on January 16. “What the US does is typical economic coercion and bullying. China deplores it and firmly opposes it.
Sidley Austin LLP, a London-based law firm, said the latest round of US chip ban is different from previous ones in several ways.
It said the biggest changes of the US chip ban apply to countries “in the middle,” those that are neither clear US allies nor clear US adversaries. Also, the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) opted for a “regulate first, collect comments later” approach to a major update to US export controls.
It said the new regulations are a notable shift to controlling numerical inputs to an AI model itself.
ASML is affected
On January 15, the Dutch government said it will modify its national export control measure for advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment on April 1. It said that as of that date more types of technology will be subject to a national authorization requirement.
Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Reinette Klever said the government observed increased security risks associated with the uncontrolled export of chip-making equipment.
ASML, the world’s largest chip-making equipment maker, is expected to be hurt by the Dutch government’s latest decision.
Also on January 15, the BIS in two final rules added 25 Chinese companies and two Singapore-based firms to its Entity List.
It accused them of contributing to the development of advanced computing integrated circuits (ICs) that further China’s development of advanced weapons systems, weapons of mass destruction and high-tech surveillance applications; and also advancing China’s military modernization through the development and integration of advanced AI research.
Among the sanctioned, Sophgo was accused by the US of having ordered AI chips from Taiwan’s TSMC for Huawei.
Yong Jian is a contributor to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese journalist who specializes in Chinese technology, economy and politics.
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