Republican U.S. lawmakers on Friday criticized the Biden administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel AI chip.
The United States placed Huawei on a trade restriction list
in 2019 for violating Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble
Beijing's technological advances. Placement on the list means the company's
suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping
to it.
One such license, issued by the Trump administration, has
allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since
2020. China hardliners had urged the Biden administration to revoke that
license, but many grudgingly accepted that it would expire later this year and
not be renewed.
Huawei's unveiling Thursday of its first AI-enabled laptop,
the MateBook X Pro powered by Intel's new Core Ultra 9 processor, shocked and
angered them, because it suggested to them that the Commerce Department had
approved shipments of the new chip to Huawei.
“One of the greatest mysteries in Washington, DC is why the
Department of Commerce continues to allow U.S. technology to be shipped to
Huawei” Republican Congressman Michael Gallagher, who chairs the House of
Representatives select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters.
A source familiar with the matter said the chips were
shipped under a preexisting license. They are not covered by recent broad-cased
restrictions on AI chip shipments to China, the source and another person said.
The Commerce Department and Intel declined to comment.
Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The reaction is a sign of growing pressure on the Biden
administration to do more to thwart Huawei’s rise, nearly five years after it
was added to a trade restriction list.
In August, it shocked the world with a new phone powered by
a sophisticated chip manufactured by sanctioned Chinese chipmaker SMIC,
becoming a symbol of China’s technological resurgence despite Washington’s
ongoing efforts to cripple its capacity to produce advanced semiconductors.
At a Senate subcommittee hearing this week, Kevin Kurland,
an export enforcement official, said Washington’s restrictions on Huawei have
had a "significant Impact" on it access to U.S. technology. He also
stressed that the goal was not necessarily to stop Huawei from growing but to
keep it from misusing U.S. technology for “malign activities.”
But the remarks did little to stem frustration among
Republican China hawks following the news about Huawei’s new laptop.
“These approvals must stop,” Republican congressman Michael McCaul said in a statement to Reuters. “Two years ago, I was told licenses to Huawei would stop. Today, it doesn’t seem as though the policy has changed.”
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