According to Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, the United States has discussed limiting semiconductor exports to China with its allies, including Japan and the Netherlands.
The Biden administration issued a number of restrictions in October in an effort to halt Beijing’s scientific and military advancements. The goal is to prevent China from obtaining certain semiconductor chips produced anywhere on the globe using American machinery.
Sullivan’s remarks came after Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the situation, that the two nations had reached a preliminary understanding to join the U.S.-led technology export ban.
Related: At the Gulf conference in Riyadh, China’s Xi asked for the trading of oil in yuan.
When questioned about the claim, Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister of trade for Japan, stated cooperation in export control came up during his phone call with a U.S. representative. Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, shied away from going further.
In the spirit of international cooperation, he told reporters, “I cannot get into details since they are diplomatic exchanges, but Japan has been executing its export restrictions strictly, based on the foreign exchange and foreign trade laws.”
The two crucial players required to make the penalties effective, aside from select U.S. equipment suppliers, were Japan’s Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Dutch lithography expert ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML) NV, making their governments’ approval of the measures an important step.
It stated that the additional limitations might be introduced in the upcoming weeks.
Tokyo Electron’s spokesman stated that because the issue related to the laws of each nation, the business was unable to provide a response.
The representative continued, “We intend to keep a close check on the problem constantly and deal with it correctly.”
In the fiscal year that ended in March, Tokyo Electron sold 1.94 trillion yen ($14.1 billion) worth of chip-making equipment, with 26% of those sales coming from China.
China is the second-largest market after Taiwan for the Japanese company Advantest Corp., which manufactures chip testing equipment. China supplied orders of 189 billion yen, or 27% of the total, in the preceding fiscal year.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman declined to comment.
Related: China’s trade has suffered its worst drop in two and a half years because of problems with COVID and weak demand.
IBM (NYSE:IBM) Corp. and Rapidus, a recently established chip maker backed by Japan, unveiled a partnership on Tuesday that aims to produce the most cutting-edge chips in Japan by the second half of the decade. This is another development that highlights the relationship between Tokyo and Washington.
The two businesses will collaborate to produce IBM’s 2-nanometer-node processors, which were announced last year, according to the research director of the American company, Dario Gil.
($1=137.5500 yen)
