Amid the ongoing chip wars, China’s new envoy to the US has issued a warning that Beijing will retaliate if the Biden administration imposes new restriction on technology.
Ambassador Xie Feng, during the Aspen Security Forum China said his country did not want a trade or technology war but its leaders won’t sit on their hands if the US had something up its sleeve once again.
“The Chinese government cannot simply sit idly by. There’s a Chinese saying that we will not…make provocations, but we will not flinch from provocations,” said Xie.
“China, definitely…will give our response. But definitely it’s not our hope to have a tit for tat. We don’t want a trade war, technological war, we want to say goodbye to the Iron Curtain as well as the Silicon Curtain.”
Xie, who took over the position in May, dropped a cheeky analogy, suggesting the US wanted to handicap China by creating unfair competition.
“This is like restricting the other side to wear outdated swimwear in a swimming contest, while you yourself are wearing a Speedo,” he said. “So this is not fair.”
Washington mulls comprehensive ban
Xie’s statement comes in the backdrop of reports claiming that Washington was planning to wrap up a proposal for a long-delayed programme to screen and possibly prohibit investment in China’s semiconductor, quantum-computing and artificial intelligence sectors. The Biden administration is hoping to finalise the executive order by Labor Day.
The relations between the two countries have remained frosty for a long period. Earlier this month, the chip war between the two countries took a new turn after China imposed export controls on two rare elements, essential for the manufacturing of semiconductors.
Starting August 1, exports of gallium, and germanium, among several other industrial compounds will be subject to restrictions, Beijing announced, in order to “safeguard national security and interests”.
The move came a few weeks after China’s cyberspace regulator, in a precedent-breaking move, banned Micron — the biggest US memory chipmaker, claiming that the company failed its network security review.
Micron became the first American chipmaker to be targeted by China following a series of export controls by the US on certain American components and chipmaking tools to block them from being used to advance China’s military capabilities.
(With inputs from agencies)
For all the latest business News Click Here
