news US to add Chinese chipmaker to trade blacklist

The Biden administration is set to put chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies on a trade blacklist, in the latest US effort to target Chinese technology companies that it believes

threaten its security.The US commerce department will place YMTC and other Chinese companies on its “entity list” as early as this week, according to three people familiar with

the plan. US groups are barred from selling technology to companies on the list unless they have a hard-to-obtain export license.The move comes two months after the US unveiled

harsh export controls that made it more difficult for China to acquire and produce cutting-edge semiconductors.The Financial Times reported this year that YMTC appeared to have

violated US export controls by supplying Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei with Nand memory chips for its smartphones.US lawmakers have for months been pressing the Biden

administration to put the company on the entity list. Lawmakers had also warned Apple that it would face harsh scrutiny if it proceeded with a plan to buy YMTC chips.When the US

introduced the export controls on October 7, it also placed more than 30 Chinese companies, including YMTC, on the “unverified list” of entities for which the US has been

unable to conduct end-user checks to make sure American technology is not being diverted for unauthorized uses. At the time, it set a 60-day window for companies to allow the US to

conduct investigations or face the threat of being on the entity list.Alan Estevez, the top commerce department official for export controls, last week said China had relented and

was allowing the inspections of some companies after a long period of no co-operation. He said the US was “seeing better behaviour” from China's commerce ministry, which

oversees end-use checks for Chinese companies. But the US commerce department at the time declined to say how many companies were co-operating.Michael McCaul, a Republican lawmaker

who is expected to chair the House foreign affairs committee from January, said he had been pressing the commerce department for a year to put YMTC on the entity list.“There is

no doubt it should be on the entity list with the strictest licensing policy possible,” he said. “But YMTC is one of many companies that is modernizing the Chinese Communist

party's military, and [the commerce department’s bureau of industry and security] needs to aggressively move forward with more listings — and getting our partners and allies on

board.”The YMTC move is likely to spark protests from Beijing, which this week filed a dispute with the World Trade Organization over the October 7 export controls. The White