China, India among nations targeted as US expands trade blacklist

The United States on Friday placed 32 companies and organisations — including firms in India, Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates — on its trade blacklist, according to a US government notice.

The move penalises two Chinese firms accused of obtaining US chipmaking equipment for China’s top semiconductor maker, SMIC.

GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co and Jicun Semiconductor Technology were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corporation, the Federal Register posting said.

The SMIC companies were already on the Entity List, and shipping US equipment to them requires licenses, which likely would have been denied.

Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Technology Co, which is involved in the production of high-performance computing chips, as well as associated companies and other entities in China, Singapore and Taiwan, were added to the list for acquiring US-origin items "in support of China's military modernization, for participating in China's advanced computing and integrated manufacturing and distribution sectors, and directly supplying the military, government, and security apparatus of China."

Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics has also supplied technology to Russian military end users, according to the Commerce Department, which put an additional restriction on the company.

The companies could not immediately be reached for comment.

Entities in India, Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were also added to the list, the posting showed.