By Ana Swanson | New York Times
At a meeting in Washington this spring, tech company representatives and government officials once again found themselves at odds over where to draw the line when it came to selling coveted technology to China.
The Biden administration was considering cutting off the sales of equipment used to manufacture semiconductors to three Chinese companies that the government had linked to Huawei, a technology giant that is sanctioned by the United States and is central to China’s efforts to develop advanced chips.
Applied Materials, KLA Corporation and Lam Research, which make semiconductor equipment, argued that the three Chinese companies were a major source of revenue. The U.S. firms said that they had already earned $6 billion by selling equipment to those Chinese companies, and that they planned to sell billions more, two government officials said.
U.S. officials, who view the flow of U.S. technology to Huawei as a national security threat, were stunned by the argument. In regulations issued this month, they ultimately rejected the American companies’ plea.
