China announces ban on Germanium, Gallium exports to US in tit-for-tat move

By Bloomberg News 

China announced an outright ban on several materials crucial to chip-making from being exported to the US citing concerns over military usage, in a tit-for-tat move after President Joe Biden’s government escalated technology curbs on Beijing. 

Gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials are no longer allowed to be exported to America as an overall principle, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Tuesday. Beijing will also impose a stricter end-use review on dual-use products related to graphite, it added.

 

“The US has generalised the concept of national security, and politicized and weaponized economic, trade and tech issues,” a ministry spokesperson said in a separate statement. “It has abused export control measures and unreasonably restricted certain products’ export to China.”

 

The announcement comes after the Biden administration slapped fresh curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory chips made by US and foreign companies to China. That was the latest salvo in an intensifying a campaign to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions.

 

President Xi Jinping’s government last year placed gallium and germanium under stricter government oversight as tensions flared between the world’s largest economies. Rather than facing an outright ban, however, gallium shipments were subject to licensing requirements. 

 

Gallium chips find widespread use in defense and aerospace equipment.