The U.S. is poised to begin adding dozens of Chinese firms, including the country’s top chipmaker, SMIC, to a trade blacklist, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Friday.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement the department would “not allow advanced U.S. technology to help build the military of an increasingly belligerent adversary,” Reuters first reported early Friday.
As a result of the blacklisting, the government would deny licenses to SMIC, preventing it from accessing technology for advanced semiconductor production.
Moves by the department to blacklist SMIC could throw a wrench in much of China’s long-term goals to build a world-renowned semiconductor industry and reduce reliance on American technology.
The Shanghai-based company SMIC serves as a supplier to Qualcomm and Broadcom. The blacklisting comes just months after the department placed the company on a separate export restrictions list after accusations of SMIC supplying to the military emerged, Bloomberg reported.
The Hill contacted SMIC but did not immediately receive a response.
The department added the decision Friday “stems from China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) doctrine and evidence of activities between SMIC and entities of concern in the Chinese military industrial complex.”
China’s foreign ministry responded promptly Friday, saying the U.S. crackdown on Chinese companies is “unjustified” following Reuters reporting nearly 80 mostly Chinese companies would be placed on the Commerce Department’s blacklist.
“We urge the U.S. to cease its mistaken behavior of unwarranted oppression of foreign companies,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a press conference in Beijing on Friday.
Ross told Fox Business in an interview the U.S. would add 77 companies to the “entity list,” or blacklist, which includes 60 Chinese companies.
The Commerce Department’s designations for the list feature some entities that allowed China to enable some alleged human rights abuses, also some that aided the country to construct and militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Previously, telecom companies such as Huawei and its affiliates were added to the list, as well as ZTE Corp and Hikvision.
The U.S. move to impose the department’s entity list is likely seen as President Trump’s final push while he’s in office to embed his tough-on-China policy, as President-elect Joe Biden is slated to assume office nearly one month from today.