U.S. officials during their trip to China this week outlined expectations for end-use checks in the country and rebuffed requests from Beijing to reduce export restrictions on advanced technology, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. While the American contingent isn’t leaving China with concrete resolutions to trade issues, she said she believes commitments from both sides to increase communication, including as part of an export control enforcement working group, were a positive first step.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will now be able to renew its temporary denial orders for one year instead of the previous maximum of 180 days, the agency said in a final rule. BIS said it can now request extended renewals of TDOs if it demonstrates the parties subject to the orders -- which generally suspend them from participating in transactions subject to the Export Administration Regulations -- have “engaged in a pattern of repeated, ongoing and/or continuous apparent violations of the EAR.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week released a second correction to its final rule earlier this month that expanded the scope of its nuclear-related export controls on China and Macau (see 2308110019). The correction fixes the Commerce Country Chart that was included in the original final rule. BIS also made a fix to the rule Aug. 17, correcting an "inadvertent error” in the rule’s “regulatory instructions” (see 2308170064).
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a final rule for interagency review that would align its export controls with changes recently made by the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime. The final rule, sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Aug. 25, would revise the Export Administration Regulations with MTCR decisions from 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. The rule also would make revisions to the eligibility of one or more license exceptions.
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a final rule for interagency review that could align its export controls with certain changes made by the Australia Group, a multilateral export control forum that focuses on chemical and biological weapons. The rule was sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Aug. 25.
The U.S. and China launched a new commercial trade working group and a new pathway to exchange information on export control enforcement, two initiatives to allow the countries to better communicate around sensitive trade issues, the Commerce Department announced during meetings between Washington and Beijing officials this week. The export enforcement information sharing initiative, which will meet for the first time this week, is aimed at reducing “misunderstanding” surrounding U.S. policies toward China, Commerce said, including export restrictions on critical and sensitive technologies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week suspended the export privileges of a California resident for the illegal sale of a controlled defense item to China and two others for illegally exporting firearms to Canada and Mexico.
A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China "welcomes" the Bureau of Industry and Security's recent move to drop 33 entities from its Unverified List after the agency carried out end-use checks (see 2308210015). The move, which included Chinese companies, shows that both countries can address "specific concerns through communication based on mutual respect," the spokesperson said. In a separate release, the country's Ministry of Commerce said the BIS decision is "conducive to the normal trade between Chinese and American companies and is in line with the common interests of both parties," according to an unofficial translation. BIS made the move after an agency policy change that lets it move companies from the UVL to the Entity List if BIS is unable to conduct an end-use check on those companies within 60 days.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on Aug. 21 renewed a February temporary denial order that suspended the export privileges of Russian company Radiotester OOO and owner Ilya Balakaev for illegally shipping counterintelligence and military-related devices to Russia and North Korea (see 2302240042).
British semiconductor company Arm, in its initial U.S. public offering this week, said it’s facing uncertainty from U.S. and U.K. export controls and doesn’t expect to receive an export license to ship certain high performance processor cores to China. The company also said it’s expecting to see slower growth in its China sales revenue due to several factors, including various government-imposed “trade and national security policies.”