MOSCOW: The United States will stick to its hardline stance on denying China cutting-edge microchips, as technological developments may be allegedly used to boost the Asian nation’s military capacity, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Sunday, reported Sputnik.
“We are not going to sell the most sophisticated American chips to China that they want for their military capacity,” Raimondo told the NBC News broadcaster, adding “We are going to be as strict as can be and as hardline as possible denying China the most sophisticated chips.”
The US will keep selling less sophisticated chips to China, still worth billions of dollars, the commerce secretary also said.
At the same time, Raimondo called for a “realistic” assessment of her abilities to reach concrete results during her recent visit to China that took place from August 27-30 where the commerce secretary met with high-ranking Chinese officials and US entrepreneurs doing business in the country.
“I think we did achieve concrete outcomes … I think we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot accomplish on a first visit,” Raimondo told CNN.
In early August, the White House announced that US President Joe Biden signed an executive order that authorised the Secretary of the Treasury to regulate certain US investments into Chinese entities engaged in activities involving national security sensitive technologies in three sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and certain artificial intelligence systems.
Chinese Embassy in Washington spokesperson Liu Pengyu told Sputnik that Beijing was very disappointed that the Biden administration moved forward with plans to roll out new restrictions on US economic investment in China.
According to the Chinese embassy, so far there are more than 70,000 US companies doing business in China, and the stock of bilateral investment has exceeded US$240 billion. – BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
