Blacklist call tit-for-tat move for Micron decision, experts say

A U.S. lawmaker's call to add Chinese memory chipmakers to a trade blacklist shows that Washington wants to abuse its political power to retaliate against Beijing's law-based decision on U.S.-based chipmaker Micron Technology, experts said on Wednesday.

Mike Gallagher, the chair of the U.S. House of Representatives' committee on China, said the U.S. Commerce Department should add Chinese memory chipmakers such as Changxin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp to a trade blacklist, Reuters reported.

If the U.S. government agrees to that, it would further disrupt the global semiconductor industry chain and harm the interests of U.S. companies that supply products to these Chinese chipmakers, said Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association.

China's law-based decision asking its critical information infrastructure operators to stop buying products from Micron is a necessary move to safeguard national security and is in line with international practices, said Bai Ming, deputy director of international market research at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

"The U.S. government has banned Chinese companies amid national security concerns. Why is China not allowed to do so? We have national security concerns and we can take actions in accordance with our laws," Xiang said.

The decision on Micron was made after the government conducted a seven-week investigation into the company's products sold in China. The move is more transparent than Washington's ban on Chinese companies such as Huawei, Xiang added.