China on Wednesday strongly criticised Taiwan’s decision to include two major Chinese tech companies, Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), on an exports blacklist, labelling the move “despicable” and pledging to defend its interests.
Huawei and SMIC were among 601 entities from various countries added this month to Taiwan’s “strategic high-tech commodities entity list.”
As a global leader in chip manufacturing, Taiwan now requires its companies to obtain government permission before shipping high-tech products to any entity on this list, including the two Chinese tech giants.
Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, accused Taipei of attempting to curry favour with the United States through “sinister and evil tactics.”
Zhu condemned these actions as “disgraceful” and vowed that China would “take effective measures to resolutely maintain the normal order of cross-strait economic and trade exchanges and cooperation and safeguard the interests and well-being of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Taiwan’s move aligns with increasing export restrictions imposed by the United States on Chinese tech companies.
Washington has expanded efforts to limit the export of state-of-the-art chips to China, fearing their potential use in advancing Beijing’s military systems and other technological capabilities.
Recently, the United States issued guidelines warning firms that using Chinese-made high-tech AI semiconductors, specifically Huawei’s Ascend chips, could put them in violation of US export controls.
