By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican chairmen of two House of Representatives panels on Friday urged President Joe Biden’s administration to rally U.S. allies, including Japan and South Korea, to defeat Chinese “economic aggression” following Beijing’s effective ban on buying Micron Technology’s memory chips.
Michael McCaul, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo urging the administration to take action after China targets America’s largest memory chip. maker.
China’s cyberspace regulator said on May 21 that Micron had failed its network security review and would block key Chinese infrastructure operators from buying from the company, the latest development in an ongoing dispute. on chip technology between Washington and Beijing. The move came a day after leaders of the G7 industrial democracies agreed to new initiatives to push back against Chinese economic coercion.
Micron subsequently predicted a reduction in revenue.
McCaul and Gallagher urged Raimondo to work with Japan and South Korea to ensure companies in those countries “don’t take market share lost to the ban and undermine Micron.” The lawmakers added that China “launched an arbitrary economic embargo against an American company. Now the United States must ensure that this economic aggression fails.”
The Commerce Department must rally U.S. partners and allies, they said.
“We must quickly work with Japan and South Korea to ensure that Japanese and South Korean companies do not undermine Micron by taking its sales that have been lost due to the unjustifiable PRC boycott,” they added. , referring to the People’s Republic of China.
Raimondo said on Saturday that the United States would not tolerate China’s action and was working closely with its allies to deal with such “economic coercion”.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington and a Commerce Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McCaul and Gallagher said China’s action against Micron “should not deter but rather should energize export control actions against PRC companies that may threaten U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.” , such as Chinese memory chip maker Changxin Memory Technologies.
“Failure to impose a cost on the PRC for its malicious behavior will only invite more such conduct,” they added.
Reuters reported that Gallagher previously urged Raimondo to impose trade restrictions on Changxin Memory after Beijing’s actions against Micron.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Will Dunham)