US running rogue with abuse of export controls

This is an editorial from China Daily.

While the United States government may remove some Chinese companies from the so-called Unverified List, according to Western media reports, it is expected to add 35 Chinese firms, including YMTC, to the Entity List, which may actually cut them off from critical US supplies.

YMTC, or Yangtze Memory Technologies, is the largest memory chips manufacturer in China. Its blacklisting certainly will be a sign of the US escalating its attempts to strangle the country's semiconductor industry, and further damage bilateral trade ties as well as the overall relationship.

In October, the US Department of Commerce put YMTC and 30 other Chinese technology firms on its Unverified List, claiming the US could not prove they were not supporting the People's Liberation Army. They were given 60 days to prove their business activities did not put US national security at risk. Failure to do so would result in themselves being added to the notorious Entity List, a trade blacklist that denies them access to US technology and equipment unless with a special license from the US government.

As is evident from what happened to Chinese firms such as Huawei, such treatment makes life very difficult for any company on technology's cutting edge. That is exactly why Washington has resorted to its export control regime against China. The White House makes no secret of its whole-of-government approach to strangling Chinese technological and military advances.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry decried the approach again on Wednesday, condemning it for politicizing and weaponizing economic cooperation and disrupting global supply chains, and promised to take moves to protect the lawful rights of Chinese companies. Washington's repeated broadening of the concept of national security and abusive application of export controls are "naked economic coercion and technological bullying", a spokesman said.

China has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization about US-imposed trade controls, arguing they disrupt global trade. The usually protracted WTO dispute resolution process notwithstanding, even if there is a ruling in Beijing's favor one day, it may hardly make a difference. After all, as the successive legislations the US Congress has kept churning out, the National Security Strategy the Joe Biden administration has published, and the increasingly bipartisan consensus against China indicates, suppressing Chinese tech progress has actually become a core US national strategy. Washington would not accept the latest WTO ruling against US duties on imported steel and aluminum products, so there is no chance a core US national strategy will change because of a WTO verdict.

To consolidate its endeavors to stymie Chinese progress, Washington is not only going all out itself, but is enlisting allies and partners for the siege. It has been reported that Japan and the Netherlands have agreed "in principle" under US pressure to join its export control initiative.

They should be aware that by abusing its export control measures in this way to impede China's development, the US is taking a wrecking ball to the global trade rules and the international trade order and global industry chains, and consider whether they really want to be a party to that. History will judge that to be a mistake as it will only reinforce the divisions the US is trying to cement in place.