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US-China relations
TechTech War

US-China tech war: calls for more tech bans on China get louder in Washington

  • In a letter this week, congressmen called for banning exports of electronic design automation software for chip design to China
  • They have joined a chorus of ‘hawkish’ voices in Washington that want Biden to keep up pressure on China, following an aggressive push that started under Trump

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US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, seen here on March 25, has called for additional restriction on China’s access to American technology by requiring companies to a license to export electronic design automation chip-making tools. Photo: EPA-EFE
Josh Ye

Voices in Washington calling on the Biden administration to tighten technology restrictions on China have gotten louder in recent weeks, making it harder for the two great powers to ease tensions in what has become a bitter hi-tech rivalry.

US Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas, who was sanctioned by Beijing last August for his support of protesters in Hong Kong, and Representative Michael McCaul from Texas are the latest to call for additional restrictions on China. In a letter to the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on Tuesday, the two called for licensing exports of chip-design software to China.

Cotton and McCaul suggested in their letter that all US makers of electronic design automation (EDA) tools, an area in which China lags, should be required to obtain a government license before exporting to China in order to restrict the country’s ability to design advanced chips. The ban would ensure companies from the US and its allies “are not permitted to sell the communists the rope they will use to hang us all”, they wrote.

The letter came four weeks after a similar one from US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has also been sanctioned by Beijing, and McCaul calling for the US government to upgrade the sanctions against Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), China’s most advanced chip maker, to the same level as those placed on Huawei Technologies Co. This would “prohibit the transfer of goods that might support SMIC’s production of semiconductors”, the pair said.

The suggestions from the politicians known as China hawks, public figures or researchers who advocate harsher measures against the country, will not necessarily become government policy. However, their voices represent a sustained hostility in Washington towards China under the rule of the Communist Party, even after US President Joe Biden took office in January.
Last week, the US blacklisted seven Chinese entities involved in supercomputing, including Tianjin-based Phytium Technology, which had reportedly used American EDA tools, barring them from receiving hi-tech exports from US companies or others using US technology to produce chips. The move, made on national-security grounds, showed that Biden is not significantly altering the China policy stance he inherited from his predecessor Donald Trump.
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