Weakness of US' 'iron chip curtain' exposed

According to a Reuters report, the Joe Biden administration plans to expand the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule to more Chinese semiconductor fabrication factories.

The Rule that was first introduced in 1959 gives the US government the power to control the trading of US technologies, including in products made in a foreign country. The Biden administration has employed the provision to ban foreign companies from exporting semiconductor manufacturing equipment and advanced chips that contain US technologies or parts to Chinese companies.

Yet Japanese, Dutch and Republic of Korea companies, including Tokyo Electron and ASML, the two largest chipmaking equipment manufacturers, along with companies from 30 other countries and regions, are to be exempted from the expanded controls. That companies from Malaysia, Singapore, Israel and China's Taiwan island, are not exempt serves to expose the symbolic nature of the move as part of the Democratic Party's China-bashing stunts before the presidential election.