China Select Committee Asks Major Chip Equipment Firms About China Sales
The leaders of the House Select Committee on China asked five large semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) firms Nov. 7 to provide data about their China sales, saying the information would help lawmakers better understand the “flow of SME” to the Asian country and its contribution to China’s “rapid buildout of its semiconductor manufacturing industrial base.”
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In letters to American, Dutch and Japanese companies, Committee Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said they’re concerned that China has become the world’s leading market for SME and has amassed a stockpile that will help it supply computing chips to Russia's war machine, threaten its neighbors, including Taiwan, as it "will feel less constrained by the threat" of U.S. sanctions, and compete with the U.S. in critical fields such as artificial intelligence.
The letters were sent to Japan-based Tokyo Electron, Netherlands-based ASML and American firms Applied Materials, KLA Corp. and Lam Research.
“It is our assessment that the current scale of Japanese, U.S., and Dutch SME technology exports to [China] is significantly contributing to a growing global dependency on [China’s] semiconductor manufacturing capacity and enabling its industry to manufacture both advanced and legacy semiconductors,” the lawmakers wrote. “This trend is a direct threat to the United States and its allies’ national and economic security.”
The letters note that the Biden administration convinced Japan and the Netherlands last year to impose some new export controls on SME destined to China (see 2303310031 and 2303090032) and has been pushing them to impose more. While some SME firms apparently oppose such restrictions, the lawmakers said they believe the SME industry would continue to thrive under enhanced export controls.
The letters ask the companies to share their China revenue figures for the past three years, including the amounts that came from transactions involving U.S. export licenses, Chinese government entities or entities on certain U.S. government lists, such as the Commerce Department’s Entity List.
The companies had no immediate comment on the letters.