US and China trade chiefs aim for cool heads as chip wars heat up

The US and China appear to be trying to calm fraught relations over semiconductors as Chinese vendors reportedly drop orders for Micron memory components in line with Beijing's ban. On Thursday, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in Washington to discuss "issues relating to …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

China seems to have won this round

Banning Huawei is a big pain for western countries, it costs business and customers to rip out an entire telecoms network and generates bad press.

Memory is a commodity, banning Micron hits Micron but doesn't really impact Chinese companies of users - they can swap to Hynix or Samsung at zero cost

[MiguelC]

Re: "The US and China appear to be trying to calm fraught relations over semiconductors as Chinese vendors reportedly drop orders for Micron memory components in line with Beijing's ban."

Oh, so *now* it hurts...

[VoiceOfTruth]

hehehehe

-> the Commerce Department stated that it strongly opposes "restrictions that have no basis in fact"

Huawei?

[lotus123]

Re: hehehehe

Not sure what kind of lunatics are there on that "no basis" baloney. Did they really think that China would just swallow attempts to destroy Huawei and the US openly declaring that it is their goal to cripple China's ability to compete in high tech? Of course they would try to pay in kind.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: hehehehe

China has probably woken up. After Huawei there would be another industry-leading Chinese company to be erased. Then another. China will flex its muscles carefully.

[martinusher]

We started it

Although you usually see media references couched in terms of 'tit for tat' in reality we started this and unfortunately given our (US) system of government its going to take a lot of effort to stop it because every politician who needs to look as if they're doing something will want to be seen as anti-China.

The truth is we started it. Huawei's major sin was that they were cleaning up -- a solid base in infrastructure, leading manufacturer of cellphones and to cap it all they had 5G sewn up. We've seen before how the US moves to sanction or tariff industries that pose a threat to well connected domestic business so Huawei, being Chinese, got the full treatment. Once that ball was started rolling then the legislators dogpiled, plastering entity lists, sanctions and what-have-you. Coupled with the infamous 'China Initiative' which sought to root out spies by investigating and dumping on anyone of Chinese extraction who worked in industry or academia.

It is about time China pushed back. If they didn't then we'd just go from business to business causing chaos to global supply chains. We have to be stopped for our own sake.