Raimondo - No Timetable for Added China Controls

The Administration is not operating on a timetable for releasing highly-anticipated new export control rules on cutting-edge technology, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday.

The focus instead is on getting the final rules right, so that US national security is protected but companies are not prevented from selling readily-available technology, she said at a program sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute.

Commerce is engaging closely with industry and stakeholders as it crafts the final rules. “What we want to do is be incredibly targeted,” Ms. Raimondo said. “We don’t want to control anything you don’t have to control, but we don’t want to let anything through the gates that we want to control.”

Artificial intelligence is “is a huge part of this,” she added. “We’re the global leader in AI and we want to stay that way.”

Ms. Raimondo stressed that US export controls on cutting edge technology is “not about holding China back,” as Chinese officials claim. But Beijing is carrying out a military-civil fusion strategy that depends on access to the most sophisticated US technology for military use. “We are not going to allow that,” she stated.

She also warned that China’s aggressive use of industrial subsidies will create a glut of semiconductor chips. “The amount of money that China is pouring into subsidizing what will be an excess capacity of mature chips and legacy chips, that’s a problem that we need to be thinking about and working with our allies to get ahead of,” she said.

China Hawks Call for Action

Friday Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Chair and Ranking Member of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent a letter to Secretary Gina Raimondo urging the Administration to tighten export controls first announced on October 7, 2022 that restricted advanced semiconductors and equipment from being exported to the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The lawmakers cite concern that PRC technology firms have identified workarounds to evade the export control rules, allowing the PRC and People's Liberation Army continued, legal access to advanced semiconductors that can efficiently train artificial intelligence models.

The lawmakers requested:

• In tandem with consideration of other relevant parameters, the advanced computer rule threshold for the bidirectional transfer rate of 600 Gbyte/s to be lowered sufficiently to prevent clever engineering that bypasses the regulations set on October 7.
• The Administration consider measures to ensure cloud computing services are not used by Chinese firms to simply outsource their advanced computing needs.

"The October 7, 2022 export controls were a great first step but should now be strengthened to prevent clever PRC engineering, or creative K Street lawyering, from undermining the intended effects of these rules,” said Mr. Gallagher.

 [Text of Letter]