【Text by Observer Net, Liu Bai】The U.S. House "Committee on China" that often stirs up anti-China issues has once again stirred up trouble over the chip issue in China.

The committee released a report on October 7, hyping up that China purchased equipment worth $3.8 billion from five American and allied companies, including ASML, last year, which threatens U.S. national security, and called for expanding the scope of restrictions on semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

According to The Hill, the report urged the U.S. government to strengthen export controls on chip manufacturing tools, and specifically named five core semiconductor equipment companies: ASML of the Netherlands, Tokyo Electron of Japan, Applied Materials, KLA, and Lam Research of the United States.

The report said that Chinese companies purchased semiconductor manufacturing equipment worth $3.8 billion from these companies last year, accounting for 39% of the total revenue of the five companies.

Reuters reported that these purchases did not violate relevant sanctions, and increased by 66% compared to 2022, when the U.S. government implemented many export control measures.

"These companies are increasing profits at the expense of U.S. national security," said John Moolenaar, the Republican chairman of the committee, in a statement. "We must not allow this critical equipment to be given to our top adversary, otherwise the United States may lose this technological arms race."

John Moolenaar

Senior member of the committee, Democratic congressman Raja Krishnamurthy also echoed, saying, "It is unreasonable to sell chips to China for their military modernization, and it is even more unreasonable to sell them chip production machines and tools."

The committee's report called for a "significant" expansion of nationwide restrictions and licensing requirements on chip manufacturing tools, stating that relying solely on the "Entity List" for export controls is no longer sufficient to address current challenges.

Lawmakers also advocated that the U.S. should enhance coordination with allies on export controls. The report found that non-U.S. manufacturers such as ASML and Tokyo Electron face fewer restrictions than U.S. companies.

The report also stated that, if necessary, the U.S. could expand the scope of application of the "Foreign Direct Product Rule" (FDPR). This rule extends export controls to specific foreign-made products that rely on U.S. technology, to prevent (related equipment) from being sold in allied countries.

This report was released as the U.S. government is debating "how to compete with China in the field of artificial intelligence," with chips being the central topic of the discussion.

This summer, the Trump administration allowed NVIDIA and AMD to resume selling certain advanced chips to China, but faced opposition from bipartisan lawmakers. As a trade-off, both chip companies agreed to pay 15% of the relevant sales revenue to the U.S. government.

Mark Doughty, president of Tokyo Electron's U.S. branch, told Reuters that sales to China have begun to decline this year, partly due to new regulations. "From the U.S. perspective, there are clearly unmet expectations."

ASML and KLA declined to comment, while Applied Materials and Lam Research did not respond to requests for comments.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian once stated that China has repeatedly made a firm position on the U.S. maliciously blocking and suppressing China's semiconductor industry.

The U.S. politicizes economic and trade, scientific and technological issues, generalizes security, and uses them as tools, continuously intensifying chip export controls on China, pressuring other countries to suppress China's semiconductor industry, seriously undermining international trade rules, damaging global supply chain stability, and is not beneficial to any party. China has always firmly opposed this. Suppression and suppression cannot hinder China's development, but will only enhance China's determination and ability to achieve self-reliance and strength in science and technology. China will closely monitor related developments and resolutely safeguard its own legitimate rights and interests. It hopes that relevant countries will resolutely resist coercion, jointly maintain a fair and open international economic and trade order, and truly protect their long-term interests.

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Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7559049777340318234/

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