BEIJING (The Thursday Times) — China warned the United States on Friday against tightening its controls on chip exports, as calls grew in Washington for new limits after the scandal that brought down Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang.
“China has consistently opposed the abuse of export control measures, which disrupts the stability of global industrial and supply chains and serves no party’s interests,” Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, told a regular briefing in Beijing.
She was responding to US lawmakers who have called for further restrictions on exports of chipmaking equipment to China. “China and the United States should work together to implement the important consensus reached by their respective heads of state and maintain the stable development of China-US economic and trade relations,” she said.
Pressure in Congress
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, was quoted as saying he favoured limiting the exports. “The export controls on chips to China have been a big issue around here. I’m in favour of limiting those exports,” he said, adding that there was “a developing consensus in Congress”.
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia, resigned on Thursday after acknowledging extramarital affairs, including one reportedly with Alice Huang, a former executive at the Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed. The two are not related. A US intelligence memo circulated this spring reportedly alleged that she was an asset of China’s Ministry of State Security. Beijing denies she is a spy and has called the allegations a pretext for a “technological blockade”.
A report on Friday said a company set up by Alice Huang, Shanghai Longteng Intelligent Computing, had obtained servers containing Nvidia’s H800 chips, citing documents submitted to the Chinese government. Washington banned exports of the H800 to China in 2023. It is not clear how the company acquired the servers, or whether Alice Huang was involved.
Reports have also said the Commerce Department under Howard Lutnick may have failed to act on suspicions that Megaspeed was rerouting restricted Nvidia technology to China. Megaspeed has said it is investigating whether it complied with export controls, and Malaysia is looking into one of its subsidiaries over the possible diversion of advanced AI chips.
Ahead of Shenzhen
The row comes days before President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping are expected to meet at the APEC summit in Shenzhen next week. Beijing has said it is in talks about a three-way meeting there that would include Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Huang has agreed to answer lawmakers’ questions behind closed doors, a session House Republicans expect before Thanksgiving.
