Lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to take tougher action against Chinese technology

Republican lawmakers are criticizing the Biden administration’s enforcement of restrictions on China’s access to U.S. technology, saying the administration is still allowing semiconductors and other U.S. innovations to flow to Beijing that could ultimately help China in a military conflict.

In a report Released Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the administration had failed to enforce export controls that limit sales of advanced technology to China. The federal government has steadily increased restrictions on sales to China of advanced chips and chip-making equipment in recent years. The United States has also imposed restrictions on Chinese companies or organizations accused of aiding the Chinese military or Russia’s war effort, or participating in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

But Republican lawmakers said the administration had not done enough to enforce the rules and criticized the agency charged with overseeing export controls. The report faults the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security for being too close to the technology industries it regulates. Many tech companies sell products and services to China and have pushed for more lenient regulations to maintain access to a large and growing market.

In particular, the report argues that the administration has granted too many special permits allowing U.S. companies to export restricted products to China, with these exemptions granted in some cases over the objections of defense and intelligence officials.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Industry and Security said the Biden administration had been thoughtful and strong in expanding restrictions, adding more than 1,100 parties to a restricted trading list, including more than 300 companies and organizations in China. .

The spokesperson said the department is continually reviewing and updating its export controls and looks forward to reviewing the report and working with members of Congress to achieve national security objectives.

Semiconductor companies have pushed back against the restrictions, saying overly broad controls could push China to develop its own technologies and ultimately undermine U.S. industry leadership.

Gina Raimondo, the Commerce Secretary, said at a defense forum on Saturday that the administration was “building a more muscular Commerce Department” to take on China, including issuing “historic controls” that for the first time denied an entire country specific technologies.

But she argued that her department desperately needed funding to complete that mission. The Bureau of Industry and Security “has the same budget today as it did ten years ago. We have twice as many license applications. I get calls all the time from members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans: ‘Why don’t you do more?’” Ms. Raimondo said.

“I agree with you. I have a budget of $200 million. It’s like the cost of a few fighter jets,” she added. “Finance this operation the way it needs to be financed so we can do what we need to do to protect America.”

But several Republican lawmakers said Tuesday they would withhold the funding increases until the department changed its practices and moved forward with additional sanctions on Chinese companies such as telecom giant Huawei. They cited government data showing that the agency had approved the sale of $60 billion in U.S. technology to Huawei over six months in 2020 and 2021.

“Any talk of additional resources must be accompanied by actions that demonstrate the BIS is being transformed into a true national security agency that will do what is necessary to confront China and other adversaries,” said Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Business of the House of Representatives. and two other Republican lawmakers said in a statement.

The congressional report recommended a series of revisions, including giving Defense Department officials more authority in approving special licenses to supply technology to China.

A House aide said the committee would begin drafting legislation and seeking bipartisan support for the changes as early as next week. The committee will hold a hearing next Tuesday with Biden administration officials who oversee export controls.

The Biden administration recently restricted exports to China of an entire category of advanced semiconductors used to create artificial intelligence, as well as the equipment to manufacture those chips. The administration also expanded its rules extraterritorially, regulating products that use U.S. technology but are manufactured outside the United States.

But critics say Biden officials have not gone far enough to rein in some of China’s most advanced companies, such as Huawei or server brand Inspur.

Over the past year, the Biden administration considered cracking down on the special licenses that have allowed U.S. companies to continue supplying certain goods to Huawei, but halted efforts this spring as it worked to repair ties with China government, according to people familiar with the matter.

said during a briefing in November said a State Department official that the administration had decided that lifting the restrictions was an appropriate step to secure an agreement on fentanyl that could save thousands of American lives.

The battle for the Bureau of Industry and Security, previously a relatively obscure organization, has intensified as its responsibilities have escalated in recent years, including preventing U.S. technology from reaching adversaries in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Gregory Allen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the agency’s capabilities, compared with those of other governments, were impressive. But demands on the agency had skyrocketed after Russia invaded Ukraine and the Biden administration clamped down on China.

The agency was understaffed and its technology and databases were outdated, Mr. Allen said.

“From my perspective, that is unacceptable,” he said. “The United States has placed export controls at the center of its technology and national security policies. We need that capacity to be incredibly robust.”