U.S.-China tech war: proposed new U.S. chip curbs

Here’s what else you need to know about China today:

The U.S. is considering tougher curbs on AI chip exports to China as early as next month, the Wall Street Journal first reported yesterday, as part of the final set of rules that would expand on the sweeping export control restrictions announced last year.

The move would make it harder for Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and other U.S. chipmakers to sell their chips to customers in China and other countries of concern without first obtaining a license. In October 2022, the Biden administration prohibited those companies from selling high-end computing chips in a bid to “restrict the [People’s Republic of China’s] ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.”

Shares of Nvidia and AMD fell up to 2% after the news broke, along with China’s AI stocks.

China and New Zealand should promote trade and investment, Chinese leader Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 told New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins at their meeting (in Chinese) in Beijing yesterday. The two sides inked a range of cooperation agreements on trade, agriculture, forestry, education, and science and innovation.

Hipkins is leading a 29-strong trade delegation to China for a visit from June 25 to June 30 with the “objective of diversifying the breadth of our export offering” with his country’s biggest export market. Trade between the two countries hit NZ$40 billion ($24.4 billion) in 2022, and could reach NZ$50 billion ($30.5 billion) by 2030.

New Zealand has been caught in a delicate balancing act with China: Wellington, which has been less vocal in its criticisms of Beijing than its Western allies, has struggled to comment on Beijing’s human rights and foreign policy issues without alienating one of its biggest trading partners.

China and Russia held a new round of missile defense talks in Moscow on Tuesday, according to the Russian foreign ministry. “The sides exchanged views on various aspects of this problem, including its global and regional dimensions,” the statement said.

China paid consular visits to a Chinese researcher arrested in Tokyo accused of leaking trade secrets, China’s embassy in Japan stated today (in Chinese). The embassy expressed “serious concern” through diplomatic channels, while urging Japan to “respect the law and facts” and “ensure the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens.”

On June 15, police in Tokyo arrested Quán Héngdào 权恒道, a 59-year-old senior researcher at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), for allegedly emailing confidential industrial technology data obtained at the institute to a Chinese company in April 2018. The email contained information about technologies linked to synthesizing a fluorine compound, which is used as insulating gas and insulator in electrical equipment such as transformers.

The news comes just over three months after Chinese authorities detained a Japanese executive of drugmaker Astellas Pharma in Beijing, in an unusual arrest that stunned the Japanese business community.

Taiwan’s vice premier is on a visit to Japan for the first time in nearly three decades, in a bid to strengthen economic ties and discuss the semiconductor industry. Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦 Zhèng Wéncàn) said in a Facebook post that he met with Taro Aso, a former prime minister of Japan and now Vice President of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and other Japanese officials. They discussed issues such as Taiwanese chip supply chains and other economic and trade exchanges.

Landslides killed four people and left three missing in a county in Sichuan Province on Tuesday, Chinese state media Xinhua reported, leading authorities to evacuate over 900 people. China has been hit with extreme weather patterns over the past several weeks, with heavy rainfall in southern regions and record-breaking heat in the north.

Chinese state media today highlights Xi Jinping’s role as head of state and head of the military: The People’s Daily print edition front page has four photos and stories of Xi meeting the prime ministers of Barbados, New Zealand, Mongolia, and Vietnam yesterday.

Xinhua News Agency’s top story is about Xi today attending the Central Military Commission’s promotion ceremony to the rank of general of Zhèng Xuán 郑璇, political commissar of the Northern Theater Command, and Líng Huànxīn 凌焕新, political commissar of the Academy of Military Sciences.