According to the Observer, Biden signed an executive order prohibiting or restricting United States investors' investment in Chinese entities in three industry sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technology, and artificial intelligence. This unprecedented outbound investment scrutiny is designed to halt China's progress in these key technology areas. Recently, in response to Huawei's breakthrough in the production of 5G mobile phone chips, the Biden administration issued new rules on semiconductor exports to China, tightening export controls on China's advanced chips and advanced chip manufacturing equipment. In addition, the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on dozens of Chinese tech companies under various pretexts.
United States takes it for granted that as soon as it sanctions, Huawei will give in or fall directly. Similar measures have been used by the United States to attack Japan's Toshiba Corporation, Germany's Siemens AG, France's Alstom Corporation and other companies, all of which have been greatly damaged and forced to obey United States. However, this time, the United States repeated its old tricks, but failed to defeat Huawei, but inspired Huawei's fighting spirit of independent innovation and self-reliance. "United States's attempt to assassinate Huawei backfired", United Kingdom "The Economist" published an article admitting: United States's suppression of Huawei has evolved into a full-scale war, and although Huawei has been hit hard by the fierce attack of United States, it has not been defeated, but has flourished again.
In addition, United States Deputy Secretary of State Campbell recently expressed his views on U.S.-China relations at the Stimson Center event, saying that China is currently focused on economic issues and intends to stabilize relations with United States. This reflects the frequent interaction between the two countries this year, covering diplomatic, security, economic, trade and technological aspects, and even achieving cooperation in some areas. Campbell's acknowledgment that United States may have overestimated its influence on China and advocated a "cautious coexistence" approach to China, echoing China's long-standing view that the Pacific is sufficient to accommodate the two countries' shared development, even though United States has not paid enough attention to this in the past.
After the second tariff war launched by United States was fully launched, China's total export of chips reached more than 540 billion yuan, and it is gradually getting rid of Western influence. Recently, the General Administration of Customs of China released a data showing that in the first half of 2024, China's chip exports reached 542.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.6%. Previously, global high-performance chip manufacturing was mainly concentrated in a few companies such as TSMC and Samsung. And now this situation has changed, and in 2023, the new generation of flagship mobile phone Mate60Pro launched by Chinese high-tech enterprise Huawei is equipped with its self-developed Kirin 9000 chip.
In addition, there are media reports that the United States is considering taking tougher measures to put pressure on companies in countries such as Japan and Netherlands to further restrict chip trade with China. A spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce said that semiconductors are highly globalized industries, and after decades of development, they have formed an industrial pattern, which is the result of the combined effect of market rules and enterprise choices. For a period of time, the United States has frequently generalized the concept of national security, abused export control measures, artificially fragmented the global semiconductor market, wantonly interfered with normal economic and trade exchanges between enterprises in other countries, seriously deviated from the principles of free trade and multilateral trade rules, and seriously impacted the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain. China has always firmly opposed this.
Bloomberg pointed out that at present, the Biden administration is in an embarrassing situation: on the one hand, United States semiconductor companies are opposed, believing that the current trade policy towards China is counterproductive and harms the interests of American companies; At the same time, with only a few months left before the election, United States allies do not see the need to change policy. This just shows that the United States efforts to unite allies to form a "united front for chips against China" have failed.
Previously, China's Ministry of Commerce announced that it would impose anti-dumping duties on United States imported propionic acid products, with a tax rate of 43.5% and an implementation period of five years. Propionic acid is an important fine chemical product and raw material for organic synthesis, and the pressure is clearly transmitted to the relevant enterprises in the United States. Although this measure is not directly related to Biden's expansion of chip restrictions on China, it also reflects from the side that China is very dissatisfied with the suppression of United States. China's huge market demand is here, and the United States government is not only difficult to prevent normal trade between enterprises from various countries and China, but also unable to make China not take the independent chip route.
According to market research data, Huawei regained the first position in the Chinese market in the first quarter of this year. Clearly, Western repression and sanctions have failed to stop Huawei's progress. This achievement is supported not only by the patriotic enthusiasm of the Chinese people, but also by Huawei's unremitting efforts to break through the blockade of United States technology. However, the United States did not stop there. According to Reuters, the Biden administration has successively canceled the licenses of eight United States companies to supply Huawei, further expanding the scope of sanctions against Huawei. However, just as Biden was going all out to contain Huawei, the Pentagon of United States poured cold water on it: they could not leave Huawei.
At the same time, it is reported that a group of executives of heavyweight United States companies will go to Beijing en masse in the near future, hoping to meet with senior Chinese officials after the conclusion of the Third Plenum of China's much-watched 20th Central Committee to get first-hand information on China's future development path. The visit was led by the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), a Washington-based initiative group representing more than 270 United States companies doing business in China, according to people familiar with the matter. Led by USCBC ·President Craig Allen and FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, representatives of American companies with large operations in China, including Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Honeywell, UnitedHealth, Nike and Qualcomm, have been added to the visiting list.