The US is infringing free trade rules by imposing new export controls on Beijing, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday during a phone conversation with his US counterpart Antony Blinken.
“The US has introduced new regulations on export control to China, restricting investment in China, seriously violating free trade rules, and seriously harming China's legitimate rights and interests, which must be corrected,” Wang Yi stated, according to a read-out of the call released by the Foreign Ministry.
The top Chinese diplomat added that if Washington really wants to understand Beijing, it should carefully study the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
“China's domestic and foreign policies are open and transparent, and its strategic intentions are clear,” Wang Yi stressed, adding that “The US should stop its efforts to contain and suppress China, and not create new obstacles to the relationship between the two countries.”
Blinken pledged America’s willingness to maintain communication with the Chinese side on the next stage of bilateral relations.
Earlier this month, Washington published a new package of export restrictions, targeting China’s semiconductor industry by further curbing the country’s access to US technology.
The package included a ban on exporting to China chips made with US technology and intended for use in artificial intelligence and supercomputers, without an export license. The new restrictions also limit the sale of chip manufacturing equipment and technology to Chinese companies and restrict US citizens and entities from working with Chinese chip producers unless they are granted special permission.
Washington has also put China's top memory chip manufacturer and 30 other Chinese entities on a list of “unverified” companies, meaning that US officials cannot inspect them in order to grant export licenses. The move could effectively bar US companies from supplying the Chinese firms with any technology.
China’s Foreign Ministry has called the new controls unfair and warned that they will backfire and “hurt the interests of US companies.”
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