The Commerce Department last week released the final version of its guardrails for recipients of Chips Act funding, measures it said will prevent its semiconductor industry grants from being used to benefit certain “foreign countries of concern,” including China.
Exports to China
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 28 entities from China, Finland, Germany, Oman, Pakistan, Russia and the United Arab Emirates to the Entity List for various actions "contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.” The additions, outlined in a final rule effective Sept. 27, are now covered by license requirements for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations, which carry varying license application review policies. BIS also modified two existing entries on the Entity List under the destinations of China and Pakistan. and removed an entity from the Military-End User List under the destination of China.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should review U.S. investments made by Chinese lithium battery supplier Guoxuan High-Tech through its U.S. subsidiary, Gotion Inc., Republicans said in a Sept. 20 letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The lawmakers said the company, also known as Guoxuan High-Tech, has invested in lithium battery manufacturing plants in Michigan and Illinois, adding that its owners’ “membership and affiliation” with the Chinese government “requires a rigorous review” by CFIUS.
The House Financial Services Committee advanced legislation this week that could apply full blocking sanctions on a host of Chinese companies in what Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., described as the “most severe set of financial restrictions the House of Representatives has ever considered.” Barr’s bill, the Chinese Military and Surveillance Company Sanctions Act (see 2302060005 and 2306130062), could lead to new financial sanctions on companies subject to certain U.S. investment restrictions and export control licensing requirements, including China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., Huawei and other major Chinese technology companies.
China again extended its Section 301 retaliatory tariff exclusion period for sorbitol and other non-U.S. agricultural goods, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service said in a September report. The exclusion period was scheduled to expire Sept. 15 but now will remain in effect until April 20, 2024. USDA said this is the sixth time China has extended the exclusion period for sorbitol, adding that the U.S. was the second-largest supplier of sorbitol to China in 2022, with Chinese imports reaching $1.4 million.
Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao met with Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov this week to discuss expanding trade between the two countries, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Sept. 19, according to an unofficial translation.
The top Republican on the House Select Committee on China asked the Biden administration to determine whether 13 Chinese government officials should be subject to sanctions and 25 entities should be added to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List for their ties to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The U.K. suspended its collection of antidumping duties on ceramic tableware and kitchenware from China for exporter Hunan Jewelmoon Ceramics Co. after conducting an additional exporter review. The suspension takes effect Sept. 21 and excludes "ceramic condiment or spice mills and their ceramic grinding parts, ceramic coffee mills, ceramic knife sharpeners, ceramic sharpeners, ceramic kitchen tools to be used for cutting, grinding, grating, slicing, scraping and peeling, and cordierite ceramic pizza-stones of a kind used for baking pizza or bread."
The Bureau of Industry and Security needs more resources to investigate export control violations, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said this week. She also said a potential government shutdown would be “crushing” for the agency’s enforcement efforts and work on semiconductor export regulations.
The U.S. unsealed an indictment this week against a Russian citizen and Hong Kong resident who helped illegally procure U.S. dual-use microelectronics with military applications for Russian end users. Maxim Marchenko used a network of shell companies to source the items from the U.S., DOJ said, giving false information to American distributors to assure them the products weren’t destined for Russia. Marchenko was charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. along with money laundering, wire fraud and smuggling offenses.