INTER IMPERIALIST RIVALRY

As chip restrictions escalate, Chinese firm tells US employees to stop product development

Naura Technology asks American engineers to ‘stop working on research, development projects,’ claims report

Riyaz ul Khaliq |13.10.2022


ISTANBUL

Amid Washington’s new restrictions to disallow US employees help China’s semiconductor industry, the American employees working for China’s top firm have been told to stop “taking part in component and machinery development.”

Beijing-based Naura Technology Group has “asked its American engineers to stop working on research and development projects with immediate effect,” Chinese daily South China Morning Post reported on Thursday, citing an internal communication shared by the firm.

The order is being implemented “with immediate effect.”

Washington’s new restrictions include strict and extensive export controls besides disallowing the involvement of US citizens in key facilities on the Chinese mainland.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security’s new regulation restricts the “ability of US persons to support the development or production of chips at certain China-located semiconductor fabrication facilities without a license.”

In the backdrop of the new US restrictions, reports claimed that chip equipment suppliers “are pulling out their US staff from Chinese facilities, including the country’s top memory chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies.”

Meanwhile, China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) Thursday said it opposes the “arbitrary move” by Washington of its chip technology ban against China.

“The arbitrary move is creating disruption throughout international trade ... Such unilateral policy will only further damage the global semiconductor supply chain," the CSAI said, adding it hopes Washington “rectifies its wrongdoings in a timely manner.”

The new US move “will foster an atmosphere of uncertainty and bring a huge negative impact to the mutual trust and cooperative spirit forged by global semiconductor industry players over the past decades,” it warned.