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The U.S. government has stopped granting licenses for U.S. companies to export most products and technology to Chinese tech giant Huawei, according to reports.
At the same time, the Biden administration is continuing to tighten regulations and policies on exporting technology to China.
Washington has previously accused Huawei of posing a threat to U.S. national security and of collaborating with China. Huawei and Beijing have repeatedly denied the allegations.
The British media “Financial Times”, which was the first among the international media to report that the United States has further tightened export restrictions on Huawei, reported that the US Department of Commerce has told some US companies that it will no longer issue licenses to export technology to Huawei.
The move comes as Washington moves to move towards a blanket ban on sales of U.S. technology to Chinese telecom equipment giants, the report said.
US ‘continuously evaluating policies and regulations’
A spokesman for the US Department of Commerce told the BBC, “We work closely with our cross-agency export control partners in the Departments of Energy, Defense and State to continually review policy and regulations and regularly communicate with external stakeholders.”
The spokesman also said it does not comment on conversations with specific companies or related considerations.
The “Financial Times” report also quoted Martijn Rasser, a technical expert at the think tank “Center for a New American Security” (CNAS), saying that Washington’s latest move is a “quite important step.”
He said that part of the reason for the (U.S.) Department of Commerce’s move is that Huawei has changed a lot compared to when it focused on 5G four years ago, such as Huawei’s expansion into submarine cables, cloud computing and other fields.
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China condemns ‘tech hegemony’
Huawei has yet to comment on the reports.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a regular press conference on January 31 that China expressed “serious concern” about the reports and was closely monitoring relevant developments.
The spokesperson also accused the United States of “naked technological hegemony.”
The Biden administration has been tightening restrictions on Huawei. Political tensions between Washington and Beijing are heating up over Taiwan, where most of the world‘s chips (wafers) are made.
In October, Alan Estevez, the U.S. undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said, “We are doing everything we can to protect our national security and prevent sensitive technology with military applications from being Military, intelligence and security takeovers.”
Mao Ning also said at the press conference on the 31st that China firmly opposes the US “generalizing the concept of national security” and unreasonably suppressing Chinese companies. Confidence in the business environment” is “naked technological hegemony”.
Huawei and the U.S.-China Game
For several years, Shenzhen-based Huawei has faced U.S. restrictions on exports of 5G telecommunications equipment and artificial intelligence technology.
In 2019, during the Trump presidency, U.S. officials added the company to the so-called “Entity List.”
That means U.S. companies need to obtain licenses from the government to export or transfer certain technologies, especially amid concerns that they could be used by the Chinese military.
Since then, however, some U.S. companies, including Intel and Qualcomm, have also obtained licenses to supply Huawei with technology unrelated to 5G.
Some analysts once described that China’s technology giant Huawei has become an important bargaining chip in the US-China trade war, and even in the global game between the US and China.