In the US, the Biden administration has cancelled export licences that allowed Intel and Qualcomm to supply semiconductors to Huawei.
The move by the US Department of Commerce affects Huawei’s supply of chips for its laptops and mobile phones, the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Commerce Department confirmed to the FT that it had revoked certain export licences for Huawei, but did not specify which US companies were affected.
We continually assess how our controls can best protect our national security and foreign policy interests, taking into account the ever-changing threat environment and technological landscape. As part of this process, we sometimes revoke export licences, as we have done in the past,’ the spokesman said.
A person familiar with the matter said the Commerce Department had notified affected companies, but did not elaborate.
Meghan Harris, an export control specialist at consultancy Beacon Global Strategies, said: ‘This is an important action that shows how seriously the US government takes national security threats from Chinese technology and is not backing down. Industry and foreign partners have been watching to see if the administration would soften its stance, this is a clear indication that it won’t, and we should expect any subsequent administration to continue down this path,’ she said.
The move comes at a time when the US is concerned about Huawei’s ability to develop advanced chips despite extensive export controls that will be introduced in 2022. When US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited China last year, Huawei launched its Mate 60 Pro smartphone with an advanced chip that surprised experts.
Republicans push for more bans
Washington has already imposed tough restrictions on US technology sales to Huawei, but Republican members of Congress are urging President Joe Biden to take even tougher action against Huawei.
Marco Rubio, the Republican vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Elise Stefanik, a Republican in the House of Representatives, called on Raimondo last month to revoke Huawei licences after it emerged that the Shenzhen-based group was building laptops using Intel chips.
It is clear from these trends that Huawei, a company that was blacklisted just a few years ago, is making a comeback,” the congressmen wrote in their letter.
Following publication of the letter, Intel announced that it strictly complies with all laws and regulations in the countries where it does business.
Huawei’s MateBook X Pro laptop, released last month, uses Intel’s Core Ultra 9 chip.
Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has repeatedly called on the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security to take a tougher stance on Huawei. In a letter last year, he expressed concern that the Chinese group ‘may still be able to purchase significant amounts of US technology’.
Rubio told the FT: ‘This is the right decision, but the licence should never have been granted in the first place. The Biden administration needs to be proactive in rejecting critical technology from Chinese companies, not just reactive when alerted by lawmakers who take the threat seriously,’ Rubio told the FT.
Reaction from China: Economic bullying
The Chinese embassy in Washington described the move as ‘blatant economic bullying’.
Arbitrarily imposing restrictions or forcibly trying to unbundle [economies] to serve a political agenda violates the principles of market economy and fair competition, undermines the international economic and trade order, disrupts and destabilises global industry and supply chains, and ultimately harms the interests of the whole world,’ said embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu.
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