Washington’s latest proposal to restrict and monitor investments by U.S. companies and individuals in key Chinese technologies would put global artificial intelligence and semiconductor supply chains at risk and increase uncertainty about the international economic recovery, officials and experts said on Monday.
The comments came after the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday fleshed out proposed rules to restrict and monitor investments by U.S. companies and individuals in China in artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum computing.
The proposed regulations outline the information that U.S. citizens and permanent residents must provide when conducting transactions in this sector and what will be considered violations of the restrictions.
A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Monday that the United States has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of “decoupling” with China or hindering China’s economic development. But the United States is insisting on issuing these proposed regulations to restrict investment by U.S. companies in China and stifle the normal development of Chinese industries.
The spokesman said these measures are excessive measures under the guise of national security, undermining the international economic and trade order and disrupting the safety and stability of the global industrial and supply chains.
“China expresses serious concern and resolute opposition to this and reserves the right to take appropriate measures,” the spokesman added.
“Despite Washington’s shift in rhetoric from decoupling to risk aversion in key supply chains, the U.S. government continues to tighten restrictions on exports and investment to China,” said Wei Jianguo, a former vice secretary of commerce.
“This move is the latest evidence that the U.S. government is doing everything it can to curb China’s rising technological power, regardless of how much pain it might cause American companies,” Wei said.
Zhou Mi, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said the U.S. move represents a strategic expansion of export controls into investment restrictions aimed at further decoupling from China in high-tech areas.
Zhou said these restrictions would hinder normal trade and investment activities between Chinese and U.S. companies, impede bilateral technology exchanges, and undermine the global innovation ecosystem.
Xiang Ligang, secretary-general of the Information Consumer Alliance, a China telecommunications industry group, said the U.S. government’s increasing attempts to contain China’s rise in tech through export and investment controls will hurt the interests of U.S. companies and encourage Chinese companies to accelerate their efforts to innovate.
Mainland China, the world’s largest semiconductor market, consumes more than half of the world’s semiconductors, which are then assembled into high-tech products and either re-exported or sold in the domestic market, according to research firm Daxue Consulting.
