U.S. Stops Granting Export Licenses to Huawei, Restricts CCP’s Technology Upgrades

It was reported on January 30 that the Biden administration has stopped approving licenses for U.S. companies to export most items to Communist China’s Huawei. Over the past few years, Huawei has faced consistent U.S. export restrictions on 5G and other technology products, but officials at the U.S. Department of Commerce have granted licenses for some U.S. companies to sell certain goods and technologies to Huawei. For example, Qualcomm was granted a license in 2020 to sell chips for 4G smartphones to Huawei. At the end of the previous administration and early in the current one, officials still granted licenses for specific items for 4G applications. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Commerce said officials would “continually assess our policies and regulations”. It was revealed that U.S. officials are working on a new formal policy of denial for shipping items to Huawei, which would include items below the 5G level, including 4G items, Wifi 6, Wifi 7 and artificial intelligence, as well as high-performance computing and cloud items.

According to another source familiar with the matter, the move will reflect the Biden administration’s tightening of Huawei’s policy over the past year. Licenses for 4G chips that could not be used for 5G, which might have been approved earlier, were being denied. U.S. officials put Huawei on a trade blacklist in 2019, restricting most U.S. suppliers from shipping goods and technology to the company unless they are granted licenses. Officials continued to tighten controls to cut off Huawei’s ability to buy or design semiconductor chips. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has no ability to develop highly sophisticated technology on its own, and if the United States wakes up and takes real action to restrict and sanction technology transfers and exports to Communist China, the CCP will only perish faster.