US to Add More Than 30 Chinese Companies to Trade Blacklist

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The Biden administration plans to put Yangtze Memory Technologies and more than 30 other Chinese companies on a trade blacklist that would prevent them from buying certain American components, deepening tensions between the world's two economic superpowers.

The US Department of Commerce will add China's leading maker of memory chips and the others to the so-called Entity List as early as this week, according to a person familiar with deliberations who asked not to be named discussing a sensitive matter.

Companies on the Entity List are blocked from buying technology from US suppliers unless they get a special export license from Commerce. That designation's earlier use decimated Huawei Technologies Co.'s consumer smartphone business and hampered the efforts of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to grow into China's chipmaking champion.

The US has “politicized and weaponized economic cooperation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday at a regular press briefing in Beijing, adding that Washington's actions disrupted supply chains. China would take steps to protect the rights of its companies, he said.

A representative for Yangtze Memory declined to comment.

The latest move would represent an escalation in the US-China conflict over technology. The Biden administration unveiled a sweeping set of restrictions on China's ability to buy semiconductors and chipmaking equipment in October, putting Yangtze Memory and other companies on a list for further scrutiny at the time.

At the time, the US Commerce Department added 31 organizations including Yangtze Memory to what's known as the Unverified List, which means American authorities are not able to prove that those companies are not