People’s Daily published a Chinese translation of an English article from China Daily titled “Weakness of The US ‘Iron Chip Curtain’ Exposed.”
The following are highlights from the original China Daily article:
The Joe Biden administration plans to expand the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule to more Chinese semiconductor fabrication factories. The Rule gives the US government the power to control the trading of US technologies, including in products made in a foreign country. The Biden administration has employed the provision to ban foreign companies from exporting semiconductor manufacturing equipment and advanced chips that contain US technologies or parts to Chinese companies.
Yet Japanese, Dutch and Republic of Korea companies, including Tokyo Electron and ASML, the two largest chipmaking equipment manufacturers, along with companies from 30 other countries and regions, are to be exempted from the expanded controls. That companies from Malaysia, Singapore, Israel and China’s Taiwan island, are not exempt serves to expose the symbolic nature of the move as part of the Democratic Party’s China-bashing stunts before the presidential election.
The other takeaway from the move is that more and more US allies are starting to distance themselves from the Biden administration’s “chip war” against China in fear of being left high and dry should the former “America-first” US president prove successful in his bid to return to the White House. In other words, instead of showing the success of its “chip alliance” scheme to thwart China’s high-tech progress, the prospective new rule indicates that the “united front” the Biden administration has painstakingly formed over the past more than three years is beginning to collapse.
As a matter of fact, the chip-related deals between China and Japan, the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea have kept rising steadily over the past years as companies from the latter have found plenty of ways to steer clear of the US government’s de facto coercion. Which might be a practical factor spurring the Biden administration to issue the new rule signaling that it will allow them to trade with China, making the move a face-saving attempt.
Source:
1. People’s Daily, August 3, 2024
http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0803/c1002-40291814.html
2. China Daily, August 1, 2024
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202408/01/WS66ab6e75a3104e74fddb8089.html