The Chinese government has slammed America’s introduction of a slew of export controls on US-made semiconductors that Washington fears Beijing could use to make the next generation of weapons and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The new measures, unveiled by the outgoing Biden administration, have raised the political temperature between the world’s top two economies ahead of the imminent inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made self-sufficiency a major pillar of his economic strategy to make China a tech superpower.
On Monday, the US Commerce Ministry announced curbs on the sale of two dozen types of semiconductor-making equipment and restrictions on numerous Chinese companies from accessing American technology.
The goal of the new controls, US Commerce Ministry officials said, was to slow China’s development of advanced AI tools that can be used in war and to undercut the country’s homegrown semiconductor industry, which threatens the national security of the US and its allies.
China’s Commerce Ministry condemned the move, accusing the US of “abuse” of export controls and posing “a significant threat” to the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
“The US preaches one thing while practicing another, excessively broadening the concept of national security, abusing export control measures, and engaging in unilateral bullying actions. China firmly opposes such actions,” the ministry said in a Monday statement.
The race for an edge in military technology has shaped US-China relations amid growing US concerns about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the coming years. China’s ruling Communist Party, which claims the self-ruled democratic island as its own territory despite never having controlled it, has adopted an increasingly aggressive stance toward Taiwan in recent years.
