China has reacted angrily to reports that the United States has stopped approving licenses for American companies to export most items to Chinese high-tech company Huawei, accusing the United States of deliberately targeting Chinese companies with the aim of pretext of national security.
US officials are creating a new formal denial policy for shipping items to Huawei that would include items below the 5G level, including 4G items, Wi-Fi 6 and 7, AI and High Performance Computing, and items in the cloud, according to a Reuters report. He cited anonymous sources.
Another source told Reuters the move was expected to reflect the Biden administration’s tightening of policy on Huawei over the past year. Licenses for 4G chips that could not be used for 5G, which could have been approved earlier, were being denied, the person said.
In November, the Biden administration banned approval of new telecommunications equipment from Huawei and ZTE because they pose an “unacceptable risk” to US national security.
in a regular press conference In Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning accused the United States of deliberately using an overly broad notion of national security to crack down on Chinese companies.
“China strongly opposes the unscrupulous and unjustified suppression of Chinese enterprises by the United States by stretching the concept of national security and abusing state power,” Mao said.
“Such moves violate the principle of the market economy and the rules of international trade, reduce international confidence in the business environment of the United States,” he told reporters.
A spokesman for the US Commerce Department said officials “continually evaluate our policies and regulations” but would not comment on discussions with specific companies.
Huawei and Qualcomm declined to comment. Bloomberg and the Financial Times previously reported on the move.
US officials placed Huawei on a trade blacklist in 2019 that restricts most US suppliers from shipping goods and technology to the company unless they are granted licenses. Officials continued to tighten controls to cut off Huawei’s ability to buy or design the semiconductor chips that power most of its products, though licenses were granted that allowed Huawei to receive some products. For example, Huawei’s suppliers obtained licenses worth $61 billion to sell to the telecom equipment giant from April to November 2021.
Huawei has faced US export restrictions on items for 5G and other technologies for several years, but the US Department of Commerce has granted licenses for some US companies to sell certain products and technologies to the company. . Qualcomm in 2020 received permission to sell 4G smartphone chips to Huawei.
In December, Huawei said its overall revenue was about $91.53 billion, just slightly less than in 2021, when US sanctions caused its sales to fall by almost a third.
