Florida Senator and vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio and House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik are celebrating the Biden Administration’s decision to finally revoke licenses for China’s Huawei to buy American computer chips.
The move comes after the sanctioned Chinese tech company released a new AI-enabled laptop powered by an Intel AI processor chip.
“It is clear from these trends that Huawei, a blacklisted company that was on the ropes just a few years ago, is making a comeback,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter last month to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Huawei has been blacklisted as it proposes a serious national security risk. Intel and Qualcomm should not provide computer chips to the Chinese tech giant.
“This was the right decision, but the license never should have been granted in the first place,” Rubio told The Financial Times. “The Biden administration needs to be proactive in denying Chinese companies critical technologies, not just reactive when they get called out by lawmakers who actually take the threat seriously.”
“Communist Chinese spy company Huawei poses a serious threat to US national security. We cannot allow our adversary to take American ingenuity and use it against us,” Stefanik posted on X. “While Joe Biden has been soft on China, I’m proud to work with @marcorubio and Republicans to provide much-needed oversight. #RealResults”
“This is a significant action that indicates how seriously the US government is approaching — and not backing down from — what it views as national security threats from Chinese technology,” said Meghan Harris, an export control expert at Beacon Global Strategies, a consultancy.
“To the extent industry and foreign partners were watching to see whether the administration would soften its stance, this is a clear indicator that it will not — and we should anticipate any subsequent administration to continue on course,” she said.
The Chinese commerce ministry said Beijing “firmly opposes” the US move, which it described as “economic coercion.”
“The actions of the US have seriously breached its commitment to ‘not seek decoupling from China’ and ‘not hinder China’s development’, and run counter to its claim of ‘precisely defining national security’,” the ministry said in a statement. “China will take all necessary measures to resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.”
