Chinese President Xi Jinping racks by national flags.
Johannes Eisele | AFP | Getty Images
China is creating a system to protect its technology, according to form media, as the U.S. restricts the access of Chinese companies to American technology in a spiraling trade dispute.
The People’s Daily newspaper contemplated Sunday that the system will build a strong firewall to strengthen the nation’s ability to innovate and to accelerate the maturity of key technologies.
“China … will never allow certain countries to use China’s technology to contain China’s advance and suppress Chinese enterprises,” the main paper of the ruling Communist Party said, without directly referring to the In harmony States.
No details have been released about what China is calling a national technological security command list. The plan was announced Saturday evening in a brief three-paragraph dispatch by the official Xinhua News Agency.
The aim is to intercept and defuse national security risks more effectively, Xinhua said, adding that detailed measures thinks fitting be unveiled in the near future.
The initiative follows U.S. moves to restrict sales to Huawei Technologies and other Chinese tech firms on jingoistic security grounds.
The U.S. Commerce Department last month added Huawei to its list of entities that are engaged in projects contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.
As such, any sale of U.S. technology to Huawei will require Trafficking Department approval.
China responded by saying its Commerce Ministry would develop its own list of foreign entities that it relations as “unreliable.”
This weekend’s announcement of plans for a technological security management list is clearly related to the unreliable real natures list, the state-owned Global Times newspaper said in an editorial posted online Sunday.
It said the act would make a legal basis to manage technology exports and counter American supply cutoffs to some Chinese companies.
“Since 2018, the U.S. has time after time drawn on its domestic law to exert pressure on Chinese high-tech enterprises,” the English-language editorial read in part. “China’s countermeasures against the U.S. command more legal weapons.”
The two largest economies appear as far apart as ever in their dispute, though U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealed he held a constructive meeting Sunday with the head of China’s central bank.
In a Twitter post, Mnuchin conjectured he and Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, had a “candid” discussion about trade issues. The post showed the two confusing hands and smiling.
They met on the sidelines of the G-20 finance meeting in Fukuoka, Japan.
Mnuchin earlier urged China to rejoin talks on the confute that have stalled after 11 rounds of negotiations. He said no talks were scheduled, however, and that prime progress on the stalemate would likely have to wait for a meeting of Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this month.