Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Exports to China
China “firmly” opposed the U.S. additions of Chinese entities to its Entity List this week, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, calling on the Biden administration to “immediately stop using military and human rights-related issues as pretexts to politicize, instrumentalize and weaponize trade and tech issues.” The U.S. should “stop abusing export control tools such as entity lists to keep Chinese companies down,” the spokesperson said during a regular press conference June 13. The export controls targeted companies in China and elsewhere for supporting China’s military or the government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang (see 2306120030).
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 43 entities to the Entity List this week, including companies conducting various activities that either support China’s military or allow the government to “carry out human rights abuses.” Other entities were added for supporting Pakistan’s ballistic missile program or other weapons capabilities.
The European Union needs to better coordinate with its member states on potential export controls against China’s chip industry, said Noah Barkin, a Europe-China relations expert with the Rhodium Group. Barkin, speaking during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing this week, said the EU is still grappling with how to best impose dual-use export controls and isn’t yet at a place where it can match U.S. restrictions.
The U.S. should push the World Trade Organization to end trade-related intellectual property waiver conditions, experts told a House subcommittee this week, saying the waiver may help China acquire sensitive U.S. technologies and leapfrog American innovation in biopharma. Several experts during the hearing suggested the waivers could act as a loophole to U.S. export controls and allow Chinese companies to better compete with the U.S. in the biotechnology industry.
The Bureau of Industry and Security again renewed the temporary denial order (TDO) for three U.S. companies for their involvement in illegally exported technical drawings and blueprints to China (see 2206080068) after continuing to find evidence of additional potential export violations. The order, originally issued June 8, 2022, before being renewed in December (see 2212080007), was renewed for another 180 days on June 1, BIS said.
The U.S. and its allies should tighten export restrictions on artificial intelligence technologies destined to China, said Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla.. Waltz, speaking during a June 5 event hosted by the Atlantic Council, said America and its close trading partners need to “collaborate and innovate within a bubble that can be protected,” adding that cutting off technology trade with China will be inevitable. “I just don't see a way forward without decoupling,” he said.
The Commerce Department should use the Entity List and potentially its anti-boycott regulations to respond to Beijning’s restrictions on U.S. chip company Micron (see 2305220053 and 2305240002), Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said in a June 1 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The lawmakers said it’s time for the U.S. and its partners to “firmly push back” on China’s “economic coercion, adding that it "can no longer sit on the sidelines as the [People’s Republic of China] selectively targets U.S. and allied entities with the goal of intimidating our businesses and harming our economic security.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security doesn't have a draft rule in place to increase export licensing requirements for Huawei despite rumors this year that new restrictions for the Chinese technology company were imminent, said Thea Kendler, BIS assistant secretary for export administration. Kendler also said the agency has seen a sharp decline in China-related license applications, is spending more time reviewing those applications and is prioritizing reviews of artificial intelligence items, quantum computing technology and biotechnology for new export controls.
Lawmakers this week previewed two bills that could expand U.S. export controls, including one that could require the U.S. to impose new license requirements on certain data exports and another that would require the administration to create a tool to counter economic coercion.