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US-China relations
China

US adds 36 Chinese companies to export blacklist, including country’s top flash memory chip maker

  • Decision meant to restrict Beijing’s ability to leverage technologies for ‘military modernisation and human rights abuses’
  • Biden administration also removed 25 Chinese firms from another trade watch list after successful end-user checks

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The US Commerce Department’s latest update to its Entity List is meant to block China from a global hi-tech supply chain that supports the production of advanced military equipment. Image: Shutterstock
Orange Wangin Washington

The US government on Thursday added three dozen Chinese firms to its export blacklist, including the country’s top flash memory chip maker, marking Washington’s latest effort to block China from a global hi-tech supply chain that supports the production of advanced military equipment.

In a further blow to China’s embattled semiconductor industry, the US Commerce Department’s decision to put 36 Chinese groups on its Entity List effectively blocks the companies from accessing critical commodities, software and technologies in the US unless their American suppliers gain explicit sales approvals.
“Today we are building on the actions we took in October to protect US national security by severely restricting the PRC’s ability to leverage artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and other powerful, commercially available technologies for military modernisation and human rights abuses,” said Alan Estevez, the US Commerce Department’s industry and security undersecretary, in a statement on Thursday.

Most notable among the newly added companies is Wuhan-based Yangtze Memory Technologies Co, the biggest player in China’s flash memory market and a state-owned company estimated to control 5 to 6 per cent of the global NAND flash memory market. A YMTC subsidiary in Japan was also included in the latest trade blacklist.

The two companies were already added to the Commerce Department’s “Unverified List” in October over concerns they could divert US technologies to previously blacklisted Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co and surveillance camera maker Hikvision.

The latest additions to the Entity List followed Washington’s export controls update in October restricting Beijing’s ability to acquire high-end US chip technology, equipment and even blocks US citizens from working for certain firms. In November 2021, the US government added a dozen Chinese firms to this export blacklist.

Other well-known names on the expanded Entity List include Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment, which is perhaps Beijing’s best current hope to produce machines that can manufacture advanced chips. The firm was previously on the Unverified List.

The US also blacklisted Tiandy, one of the top video surveillance suppliers in the world, accusing it of facilitating “hi-tech surveillance” against Uygurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and helping Iran obtain items originating in the US.
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