Beijing says US supply chain curbs sabotage China’s development

The United States is “over-stretching” the concept of national security by imposing supply chain sanctions on China to stymie its growth, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

“Such moves gravely undermine the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and deprive China of its right to development,” he said Wednesday at a regular press briefing in Beijing. Zhao added that such a strategy would only push the world’s two largest economies to “confrontation and conflict.”

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday that the US is mulling adding more Chinese firms to the government’s banned entity list, which effectively blocks access to US exports, Reuters reported. The US says some firms on the blacklist have aided China’s military operations by providing resources and know-how.

Last month, the US Department of Commerce put California-based Synopsys Inc., the biggest supplier of software used to design semiconductors, under investigation for possibly passing key technology to two banned Chinese companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

US firms are barred from selling some types of technology to Huawei Technologies Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. because they’ve been designated as threats to national security by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

China said last November that President Joe Biden’s expansion of the blacklist initiated by his predecessor violated an understanding with President Xi Jinping, underscoring the breakdown in relations between the two nations, which are clashing on everything from trade to Taiwan’s sovereignty and alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang and financial hub Hong Kong.