The U.S. reportedly informs SMIC’s American suppliers of new export restrictions
When reports first indicated that SMIC faced export restrictions issued by the U.S., the company made it clear that it had no relationship with the Chinese military. At the same time, it did say that it hadn’t received any notice from the Department of Commerce related to any restrictions. SMIC would be heavily impacted by such a restriction since it uses materials sourced from the states or from America’s allies to manufacture chips for customers.
If Bloomberg’s report is correct, SMIC becomes the latest tech company in China to have its business controlled by the United States. Last year, Huawei was placed on the U.S. Entity List which prevents the company from accessing its U.S. supply chain without a license. This includes hardware and software such as the Google Mobile Services version of Android and the Google ecosystem. This year, as we’ve already mentioned, Huawei has been blocked from receiving chips (even ones designed by its HiSilicon unit) produced by foundries using U.S. tech. And Chinese owned apps TikTok and WeChat face getting banned in the states after executive orders were signed by President Donald Trump. The U.S. fears that through the use of backdoors, Chinese tech firms steal data from American consumers and corporations and have this information sent to Beijing where it is acquired by the Communist Chinese government. It is important to understand that these are allegations and there is no proof that this misuse of data has ever occurred.