Hong Kong/Washington (CNN) — The Chinese government has slammed America’s introduction of a slew of export controls on US-made semiconductors that Washington fears Beijing could use to make the next generation of weapons and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The new measures, unveiled by the outgoing Biden administration, have raised the political temperature between the world’s top two economies ahead of the imminent inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made self-sufficiency a major pillar of his economic strategy to make China a tech superpower.
On Monday, the US Commerce Ministry announced curbs on the sale of two dozen types of semiconductor-making equipment and restrictions on numerous Chinese companies from accessing American technology.
The goal of the new controls, US Commerce Ministry officials said, was to slow China’s development of advanced AI tools that can be used in war and to undercut the country’s homegrown semiconductor industry, which threatens the national security …