There seems no letting down in US-China trade war, at least for now. According to a report in Bloomberg, China has asked some US semiconductor companies to submit what is being termed as ‘sensitive information’. The request comes from China’s Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Commerce. The questionnaire seeks details from US Chip companies their sales in the world’s largest chips market, China. The activity is said to be part of China’s probe of American suppliers. The probe is reportedly designed to gather intelligence for an anti-dumping investigation on certain American-made analog IC chips. The Bloomberg report says, it is of the sort of products sold by Texas Instruments and Analog Devices.
The analog chips that Beijing is now looking into are used to help digital systems interface with the real world, handling tasks like wireless signal amplification and power and voltage regulation. They don’t require cutting-edge chipmaking, but are essential in everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to medical imaging.
What all information China is asking in the questionnaire
The China’s Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau seeks data on sales activities of these companies in China, including a comparison of the costs and profits for the investigated chips in their home country.Among other requests, the China’s fair-trade bureau asks for the names of Chinese customers and transaction details, including sales volumes and various costs from logistics to warehousing. The questionnaires ask for information on raw material suppliers working with these US chip companies. As per the report American companies will be given 37 days to provide their answers.So far, it remains unclear which all companies will be expected to fill out the questionnaires.
How US and China are piling up trouble for companies
China also recently added companies to its version of the US’ entity list, which restricts transactions between Chinese companies and those that are targeted. It has launched antitrust probes into Qualcomm and Nvidia.Companies in both the countries face increasing pressure from their governments. The US is speculated to expand its entity list to over 10,000 Chinese companies and is considering broader export restrictions. China is implementing its own export controls on critical minerals, extending restrictions to foreign products using Chinese rare earths, and launching antitrust probes into U.S. companies.
