West News Wire: The largest US semiconductor companies’ senior executives planned to travel to Washington this week to advance their views on China policy, prompting the Semiconductor Industry Association to urge President Joe Biden’s administration to “refrain from further restrictions” on chip sales to China.
The trade association made its announcement on Monday as the Biden administration looked into upgrading a broad set of regulations put in place in October to hamper China’s semiconductor industry and a new executive order banning some outbound investment.
According to Reuters, which cited an unnamed source, the top executives of Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. planned to meet with government representatives on Monday to discuss their opinions on China policy.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, are among government officials who are to hold the meetings with Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia Corp, Reuters reported.
The statement also comes after China moved to restrict exports of raw materials such as gallium and germanium that are used in making chips. The industry group said that further rule-tightening by US officials risks “disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China”.
The industry group said it wants “the administration to refrain from further restrictions until it engages more extensively with industry and experts to assess the impact of current and potential restrictions to determine whether they are narrow and clearly defined, consistently applied and fully coordinated with allies”.
According to a US National Security Council spokesperson who spoke to reporters, the guidelines were created to make sure that US technologies weren’t being exploited in ways that jeopardised national security.
The spokesperson referred to Capitol Hill, where Congress is located, in a statement and said, “We have been deliberate about getting this right, including through extensive public comment on regulations, and through intensive coordination with allies and partners, the Hill, industry, and other stakeholders.
