As soon as Yellen reached a deal with the Chinese side, the United States turned around again and escalated its sanctions against China.
On the 4th, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's special plane landed in Guangzhou, starting a new round of six-day visit to China. In a meeting with Chinese officials the next afternoon, Yellen said, "Over the past few months, the U.S.-China Economic and Financial Working Group we have established has continued to meet and has made progress on some important and difficult issues." According to a press release issued by the U.S. Treasury Department a few days ago, Yellen's visit to China has four main purposes: first, Yellen will advocate for American workers and companies to ensure that they are treated fairly, including putting pressure on their Chinese counterparts for unfair trade practices; second, to emphasize the consequences of China's industrial overcapacity on the global economy, and "to ensure that China understands that flooding the U.S. market with cheap goods is having a negative impact on the United States and our close allies"; Third, efforts will be made to expand bilateral cooperation in combating illicit financing and to advance important progress in joint efforts to combat criminal activities such as drug trafficking and fraud, and fourth, to engage with Chinese officials on key work that will benefit the United States, China, and the world, including strengthening financial stability, addressing climate change, and addressing the debt problems of developing countries.
Just when Yellen and the Chinese side had just negotiated, the Biden administration in the United States turned around again, and the sanctions against China were further escalated, according to US media, the Biden administration is planning to put pressure on the Dutch government to ask the country's lithography machine giant ASML to stop providing equipment maintenance services to China. Previously, the United States had urged the Dutch government to prevent ASML from servicing and repairing sensitive chip-making equipment purchased by Chinese customers before sales restrictions were imposed this year. Obviously, this is the latest move by the United States to force its allies to further isolate China in the field of chips. Not long ago, some British media revealed that the United States is drawing up a list of Chinese advanced chip manufacturers that are prohibited from receiving key equipment and tools, so as to make it "easier for American companies to comply with regulations and prevent technology from flowing into China".
In addition to pressuring the Netherlands, the United States also wants Japanese companies to restrict the export of specialty chemicals that are essential for chip manufacturing, including photoresists, to China. In addition, the U.S. wants the German government to stop exporting parts to China. Generally speaking, the U.S. suppression of China in the chip field mainly includes five aspects: first, using the dominant position in the supply chain to suppress China, second, the United States and its allies and partners jointly suppress, third, suppressing high-end talents in the chip industry, fourth, plugging various loopholes to implement seamless suppression, and fifth, formulating new regulations to implement continuous suppression.
On the occasion of Yellen's visit to China, the US side revealed the news of further escalation of sanctions against China, which obviously means that this is somewhat an opportunity to put pressure on China. In response to the sanctions and suppression of the United States, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has clearly pointed out that the United States uses the so-called "national security" as an excuse to restrict the export of chips to China, and the relevant measures completely exceed the boundaries of the concept of national security and are typical acts of economic coercion. Facts clearly show that the US is deliberately suppressing the development of China's chip industry, not out of "national security" considerations, let alone legitimate competition, but a unilateral bullying behavior without a principled bottom line, to deprive emerging markets and developing countries of the right to pursue a happy life. In addition, China's previous backhand cancellation of three orders from the US side is also sending a warning signal to the US side. It is understood that in March alone, China canceled 260,000 tons of U.S. wheat orders in a week, and this is the third time that Chinese buyers have recently canceled U.S. wheat orders. In addition, the mainland is still expanding its channels, and its dependence on the United States for energy and food is decreasing, and now Brazil, Australia, and Russia have become major exporters of wheat, soybeans and other agricultural products to China. Facts have proven that US sanctions and suppression cannot scare China at all, and that cooperation between China and the United States will benefit both sides and divide will be detrimental, and the US side should carefully see the stakes involved.