Beijing’s directive this week that banned its top technology companies from buying certain Nvidia chips could be aimed at boosting its leverage amid trade negotiations with the U.S., technology policy analysts said. But they also said the U.S. shouldn’t assume the ban is just a negotiating tactic, arguing that it may signal that China is doubling down on efforts to reduce its dependence on advanced U.S. chips and other technologies.
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Beijing criticized the Bureau of Industry and Security's decision last week to add a range of Chinese entities to the Entity List (see 2509120077), saying the U.S. has "generalized national security and abused export controls to impose sanctions on numerous Chinese entities in sectors such as semiconductors, biotechnology, aerospace, and trade and logistics."
Beijing is investigating whether U.S. chip policies -- including export controls, tariffs and other trade restrictions -- are discriminating against China’s semiconductor sector by suppressing its firms from developing advanced technologies. China also launched an antidumping investigation on imports of certain U.S. analog chips.
Former U.S. trade representative Michael Froman, at an event hosted by the centrist think tank Brookings Institution, said deciding how to apply export controls is "really difficult," and quite technical, as technologies evolve.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has started restricting the public sessions of its technical advisory committee meetings, a move that has jeopardized a crucial outlet for industry feedback about new regulations, current and former administration officials and industry representatives said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security last week added 32 entities to the Entity List, most of them based in China, for either circumventing export controls on China, supplying controlled items to Russia, evading BIS end-use checks, supporting China’s military modernization, or other activities that BIS said breached U.S. export rules.
The EU this week updated its dual-use export control list to align it with decisions taken by the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, Missile Technology Control Regime, Australia Group and Nuclear Supplier Group in 2024. The update "also includes commitments that Member States have accepted, as members of the Wassenaar Arrangement, to control additional items uniformly," the European Commission said.
The Semiconductor Industry Association urged Congress Sept. 5 to reject proposed legislation that it says would impose an “unprecedented expansion” of export controls on advanced AI computing chips.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., proposed an amendment Sept. 4 that would add several export control and sanctions provisions to the pending FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, including a requirement that U.S. manufacturers of advanced AI chips make their products available to American firms before selling them to China and other “countries of concern.”