My Take | When it comes to chips, there is simply no pleasing Washington

Washington, do you want to sell chips to China or ban them? Make up your mind. Beijing announced early this week that it had imposed a partial ban on US chip maker Micron in China. Apparently, the company’s chips, which are used for memory storage in popular electronics such as phones and computers, pose “relatively serious cybersecurity problems”.

You would think American leaders would welcome the decision. Haven’t they strong-armed South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the Netherlands – well, basically everyone and anyone who makes advanced semiconductors – to bar their top chip makers from selling their best chips to the Chinese?

Now, the Chinese side says, no, we don’t want to buy from you because you pose a security risk. And what do top US politicians do? Uncork champagne? Not quite.

“The Chinese government’s announced action against Micron is not based in fact and is a troubling use of economic coercion against the US,” US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. “I am working closely with the Biden administration to make clear to the Chinese government that this sort of behaviour is unacceptable and unproductive.”

Coercive, unacceptable and unproductive? Hasn’t the US barred everyone, on pain of retaliation, from selling their best chips to China? What do you call that?

Republican lawmaker Michael McCaul, chairman of the powerful US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “China’s legal system is built to coerce any person or company under its authority.”

He then characterised this as “a mafia-like legal system bullying an American company. The US and its partners and allies must stand together against this economic aggression.”

What does he want? “No, no, no. You Chinese must buy from American companies. You just can’t buy from the Dutch, the Taiwanese, the Japanese and the Koreans.” OK, McCaul, got it.