A top Republican lawmaker has accused the Biden administration of not doing enough to prevent China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) from strengthening the country’s chipmaking industry and military-industrial complex.
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Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged US Commerce Department agents to visit SMIC’s facilities and check whether the company is illegally producing chips for Huawei Technologies, the sanctioned telecommunications equipment company seen as a national champion within China’s chip industry.
In a November 4 letter seen by Reuters, McCaul described what he called “growing bipartisan frustration” that the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) had not acted on reports of Huawei’s efforts to evade US export controls.
“There is growing evidence that SMIC is violating US export control laws,” McCaul wrote to BIS undersecretary Alan Estevez. If China is not willing to immediately agree to a “comprehensive audit of all SMIC facilities and its books”, McCaul said, “BIS should pause all existing licences for SMIC.”
McCaul said SMIC’s breakthroughs – including its advanced chip in a Huawei smartphone, and expected production of over a million artificial intelligence (AI) processors for Huawei – are a “smoking gun” for a violation and could help China surpass the US in AI.
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