Washington Initiates Export Control Checks On Chinese Tech Companies

According to foreign media report, the US government said on Dec 7th that Beijing has conceded that it allow Washington to inspect the tech companies from Communist China before the deadline of trade blacklist.

Since Trump Administration, CCP has reportedly been refusing US officials’ end-use checks on Communist China’s companies to ensure US technology is not diverted to authorized activities such as weapon manufacturing.

After Washington imposed the strictest export controls on semiconductors this October, Communist China had to allow US officials to inspect related companies. At that time, US placed 31 CCP-owned firms including Yangze Memory Technologies on an unverified list, setting a 60-day deadline for them to allow end-use inspections or face the risk of being added to a trade blacklist, which would effectively prohibit American companies from providing them with the technology.

The US Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez said it was the first time US has seen such a change in CCP’s attitude, but he didn’t know how long such a change would last. Washington’s unilateral exports controls aimed to make it more difficult for Beijing to obtain advanced semiconductors and develop the technologies and tools needed to produce high-quality chips. These chips could be used in military applications ranging from modeling nuclear weapons to developing and testing hypersonic weapons. The US has held discussion with its allies such as Japan and Netherlands to create a unified regime of export controls that would restrict the export of chip making equipment. Other sources revealed CCP approved American officials’ visits to companies in Wuhan, Shanghai and several cities in Guangdong province in November. The decision came after the sweeping impact of the latest export controls on semiconductor industry.