Republican lawmakers are criticizing the Biden administration’s application of restrictions on China’s access to American technology, saying the administration is still allowing semiconductors and other American innovations to flow to Beijing that could ultimately help China in a military conflict.
In a report Released Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the administration had failed to enforce export controls that limit sales of advanced technology to China. In recent years, the federal government has been steadily increasing limits on sales to China of advanced chips and chip manufacturing equipment. The United States has also imposed restrictions on Chinese companies or organizations accused of aiding the Chinese military or Russia’s war effort, or participating in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
But Republican lawmakers said the administration had not done enough to enforce the rules and criticized the office in charge of policing export controls. The report criticizes the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security for being too close to the technology industries it regulates. Many technology companies sell products and services to China and have pushed for more lenient rules to retain access to a large and growing market.
In particular, the report said the administration had granted too many special licenses allowing U.S. companies to export restricted goods to China, and in some cases issued those waivers over the objections of defense and intelligence officials.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Industry and Security said the Biden administration had been thoughtful and aggressive in expanding restrictions and had added more than 1,100 parties to a restricted trade list, including more than 300 companies and organizations in China. .
The spokesperson said the department was constantly evaluating and updating its export controls and looked forward to reviewing the report and working with members of Congress to achieve national security goals.
Semiconductor companies have pushed back against the restrictions, saying overly broad controls could push China to develop its own technologies and ultimately undermine U.S. industry leadership.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at a defense forum on Saturday that the administration was “building a more powerful Commerce Department” to confront China, including issuing “historic controls” that for the first time denied specific technologies to everyone. a country.
But she argued that her department urgently needed funds to complete that mission. The Office of Industry and Security “has the same budget today as it did a decade ago. We have twice as many license applications. I get calls from members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, all the time: ‘Why aren’t you doing more?’” Ms. Raimondo said.
“I agree with you. I have a budget of $200 million. It’s like the cost of a few fighter jets,” he added. “Fund this operation as necessary so we can do what we need to do to protect the United States.” Joined”.
But several Republican lawmakers said Tuesday they would withhold funding increases until the department changed its practices and moved forward with additional sanctions on Chinese companies such as telecommunications giant Huawei. They cited government data showing that the agency had approved the sale of $60 billion in American technology to Huawei over a six-month period in 2020 and 2021.
“Any talk about additional resources must be accompanied by actions that demonstrate that BIS is being reformed into a true national security agency that will do whatever is necessary to counter China and other adversaries,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman. of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. and two other Republican lawmakers in a statement.
The congressional report recommended a series of reforms, including giving Defense Department officials a greater say in approving special licenses to supply technology to China.
A House aide said the committee would begin working on legislation next week and would seek bipartisan support for the changes. The committee will hold a hearing next Tuesday with Biden administration officials who oversee export controls.
The Biden administration recently restricted the export to China of an entire category of next-generation semiconductors used to create artificial intelligence, as well as the equipment to make those chips. The administration also expanded its rules extraterritorially, regulating products that use American technology but are manufactured outside the United States.
Bureau of Industry and Security officials have said they work closely with other government officials to carefully review sales licenses to China. In 2022, the office and its other partner agencies reviewed more than 5,000 applications for exports to China, of which about a quarter were not approved, officials said.
But critics say Biden officials have not gone far enough to rein in some of China’s most advanced companies, such as Huawei or server maker Inspur.
Over the past year, the Biden administration considered clamping down on special licenses that have allowed U.S. companies to continue supplying certain products to Huawei, but paused the effort this spring as it worked to improve ties with the Chinese government, according to people familiar. with the topic. The issue.
Some China critics also expressed outrage last month when the Biden administration removed a trade restriction on a Chinese institution. accused of helping to commit human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The Chinese government had complained that the restrictions were an impediment to cooperation between governments to restrict fentanyl.
At a briefing in November, said a state department official that the administration had decided that lifting the restrictions was an appropriate step to secure a deal on fentanyl that could save thousands of American lives.
The fight over the Bureau of Industry and Security, previously a relatively obscure agency, has grown more intense as its responsibilities have grown in recent years, to include stopping American technology from reaching adversaries in China, Russia, South Korea North and Iran.
Gregory Allen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that compared to the capacity of other governments, the office’s abilities were impressive. But demands for the office skyrocketed after Russia invaded Ukraine and the Biden administration imposed controls on China.
The office was understaffed and its technology and databases were outdated, Allen said.
“From my point of view, that is unacceptable,” he said. “The United States has put export controls at the center of technology and national security policy. “We need that capability to be incredibly strong.”
