A bipartisan group of American lawmakers is pushing for a “dramatic” expansion of export controls on chip manufacturing equipment to China and alignment from US allies in restrictions, according to a report released on Tuesday.
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Their efforts come amid concern that US President Donald Trump is compromising national security in pursuit of a trade deal with China, as advocates of tougher technology restrictions fear being sidelined by the growing influence of the tech industry.
“If we are serious about limiting Chinese semiconductor advancement, countrywide technology controls are the only way,” congressman John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said at a Tuesday event hosted by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a think tank at Georgetown University.
“Our controls must be equally enforced by our allies. If ASML or Tokyo Electron keep selling … our controls leak like a sieve. We must persuade, and if necessary, pressure partners in the Netherlands and Japan to enforce synchronised restrictions,” the Republican chairman whose committee produced the report continued.
The report’s release comes days after the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security expanded its export controls for sensitive items, including chipmaking tools, from only designated firms to include any company that is 50 per cent or more owned, directly or indirectly, by those firms.
But the House committee in its report said that those restrictions do not go far enough. Entities in China “do not need official corporate links to cooperate effectively with each other to evade US export controls,” the lawmakers, which include Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the committee’s top Democrat, wrote.