Chinese Lawmaker Floats More Secrecy to Help Evade US Chip Curbs
(Bloomberg) -- A Chinese lawmaker affiliated with a top local chip firm asked Beijing to let state-backed firms keep the identity of their foreign suppliers a secret, at a time Washington is increasingly blocking the country's access to Western hardware and semiconductors.
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US-blacklisted, government-backed firms should be allowed to keep their suppliers anonymous when buying from overseas companies, National People's Congress delegate Guan Wenhui proposed this week. Instead of a public tender process as required by law, such corporations would then conduct purchases privately, she said. Publicizing the foreign sellers would only draw scrutiny and potentially force them to sever any remaining ties with Chinese firms, said Guan, who works for a unit of Naura Technology Group Co. — a chip gear maker that's been on a US export blacklist since late 2024.
Guan's proposal shone a spotlight on the difficulties that Chinese tech buyers have grappled with since the US began a campaign to block the flow of technology to its geopolitical rival. US companies now cannot sell to blacklisted firms like Naura without first obtaining Washington's approval, forcing many foreign suppliers to cut ties with Chinese clients. In another instance, Nvidia Corp. is prohibited from supplying its most advanced chips to the country, stymieing China's AI development. In practice, many Chinese firms do find workarounds, for instance through third parties in neutral countries.
'So I would like to suggest these chip firms can be allowed to proceed with their procurement in a nonpublic manner to avoid disclosing their partners and ensure their access to advanced global tech,' Guan said during a breakout meeting on the sidelines of the annual NPC plenary session on Thursday. She also amplified an existing drive by Beijing to achieve self-sufficiency in critical technologies.
While there's a process for turning proposals from NPC delegates into law, many such submissions never become concrete policies. Nonetheless, Guan's comments highlight a growing trend: Chinese data is becoming increasingly hidden from the world, making it harder and more costly to understand what's really happening in the country.
Guan is a quality control engineer from Beijing 718 Yousheng Electronics Co., a firm that the US House Select Committee on China has identified as potentially having ties to the Chinese military. Yousheng is controlled by a unit of Naura, according to Chinese corporate data base Tianyancha.
China's technology development has faced significant challenges after a yearslong US-led campaign to limit access to cutting-edge semiconductors, which power everything from artificial intelligence to smart vehicles. Beijing has said it will harness the entire nation's resources to achieve breakthroughs.
The emergence of DeepSeek this year rallied China and fueled hopes that the country's AI progress isn't necessarily hampered by a lack of the most sophisticated chips. Still, many including Nvidia boss Jensen Huang argue that semiconductor firepower is key to winning the AI race.
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