Commerce Should Place China's Honor Device Co. on Entity List, Lawmakers Say
A group of House Republicans called on the Commerce Department to add Chinese smartphone maker Honor Device Co. Ltd. to the Entity List and asked for a briefing with the agency’s End-User Review Committee to ensure the administration is “moving with enough speed” on export controls. Because Huawei sold Honor Device Co., the company can access technology that “should be restricted,” the lawmakers said in an Aug. 6 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
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“Analysts have noted that selling Honor gave it access to the semiconductor chips and software it relied on and would have presumably been blocked had the divestiture not gone through,” said the letter, signed by Republicans on the House’s China Task Force, including Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas. "The same concerns about technology exports to Honor when it was part of Huawei should apply under its current state-backed ownership structure. If we move too slowly and focus only on discrete entities rather than networks and ecosystems, the [Chinese] novel Party-state economy can outmaneuver U.S. sanctions.”
The lawmakers asked Commerce to respond to their Entity List request within two weeks and asked for a meeting with the ERC. A Bureau of Industry and Security spokesperson said the agency has received the letter. "We appreciate the perspective of these members of Congress," the spokesperson said Aug. 6. "The Department of Commerce, with its interagency partners, is continually reviewing available information to identify potential additions to the Entity List."
The letter came about a week after the House’s Republican Study Committee released their counterproposal to the Senate’s Endless Frontier Act, which would require Commerce to place Honor Device Co. on the Entity List (see 2107290047).