Beijing: With Huawei curbs, US pushes ‘decoupling’

Huawei Technologies is at the center of yet another skirmish in the Sino-American tech war.

The United States revoked some export licenses that permitted the shipment of high-end American chips to Huawei, and Beijing complains that Washington thus breached a commitment not to try to decouple the two economies.

The US Commerce Department told the Financial Times on Tuesday that it had revoked certain export licenses related to the shipment of American semiconductors to Huawei.

Citing people familiar with the situation, the report said the latest restriction affects the supply of chips for Huawei’s laptop computers and mobile phones.

The new US chip ban came after Huawei on April 11 unveiled its first artificial intelligence-enabled laptop, MateBook X Pro, powered by Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 processor.

Republican lawmakers criticized the Biden administration for allowing this to happen and called for revoking all the export licenses for the chip shipment to Huawei.

Intel said in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday that its sales will be negatively affected by this measure. It said the company expects revenue for the second quarter of 2024 to remain in the original range of US$12.5 billion to US$13.5 billion, but below the midpoint. It added that its revenue and earnings per share are expected to grow year-on-year for the full year of 2024.

Qualcomm said Wednesday that one of its export licenses for Huawei had been revoked.

“The US actions have significantly breached the commitment of not seeking to decouple from China and not hindering China’s development,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that these actions are also “in stark contrast to the US claim of