(Added comments and information on Republican letter (paragraphs 4, 8, 9 and 13)) by David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) – The United States has no evidence that Chinese manufacturer Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips in large quantities, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday. Huawei recently began selling its Mate 60 Pro phone containing a chip that analysts say was made in a technological breakthrough (link) by Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)
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“We have no evidence that they can make (seven-nanometer) chips at scale,” Raimondo said at a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, referring to a microchip advanced. Starting in 2019, the United States cut off Huawei’s access to certain chipmaking tools, believing that Huawei posed a security risk (link), which the company denies. The US government has said Huawei poses “unacceptable” risks to national security due to the threat of espionage on US telecommunications networks.
The Commerce Department said this month it was working to obtain more information “on the character and composition” of the chip that may violate trade restrictions (link) since they stipulate that it must have been manufactured using American technology.
Raimondo told the House of Representatives Science Committee that she was upset by the report on Huawei’s advanced smartphones.
Some Republicans believe the Commerce Department should end all technology exports to Huawei and SMIC.
Last week, the chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Energy and Commerce, Armed Services and China committees urged the Commerce Department to stop granting licenses to Huawei and SMIC, and said this required additional pressure from the United States “and more effective export controls on our adversaries”
Ms. Raimondo declined to say after the hearing whether she planned to terminate all licenses granted to Huawei.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said during the hearing that Ms. Raimondo was in China when the new Huawei phone was announced.
“The least we can say is that you have been trapped by the launch of a 5G phone,” Mr. Issa said.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said this month that the U.S. government was trying to get more information about the Huawei chip. Raimondo also told reporters that the Chinese government’s apparent ban on some Chinese officials using Apple AAPL.O iPhones was “concerning.”
2023-09-19 19:48:00
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