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US Lawmakers Sound Alarm Over China’s Access to Advanced Chip Tools

By  |  October 7, 2025
China AI

A bipartisan investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on China has found that inconsistencies in export controls among the United States and its allies have allowed Chinese companies to legally purchase nearly $40 billion worth of sophisticated chipmaking tools, according to Reuters.

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    The report reveals that while Washington has sought to limit Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductor technology—viewed as essential for both artificial intelligence and military applications—uneven rules between the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands have created loopholes. Per Reuters, these gaps enabled non-U.S. manufacturers to continue selling to Chinese firms that American suppliers were barred from serving.

    The committee urged the allied nations to adopt broader, coordinated restrictions on chipmaking equipment exports, instead of targeting individual Chinese companies. According to Reuters, Chinese firms purchased $38 billion in equipment last year from the world’s five largest semiconductor toolmakers—Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, ASML, and Tokyo Electron. That figure represented a 66% increase from 2022 and accounted for nearly 39% of those companies’ combined global sales.

    Read more: China Orders Tech Giants to Stop Nvidia AI Chip Purchases

    The report warned that these sales have strengthened China’s competitiveness in producing a wide range of semiconductors, with far-reaching implications for human rights and global democratic values. It also identified three Chinese companies—SwaySure Technology Co, Shenzhen Pengxinxu Technology Co, and SiEn (Qingdao) Integrated Circuits Co—as entities of security concern, citing their alleged links to networks aiding Huawei Technologies.

    According to Reuters, Mark Dougherty, president of Tokyo Electron’s U.S. unit, said the company’s sales to China have declined this year due to new regulations and noted that improved coordination between Washington and Tokyo would be beneficial. “I think it’s clear, from a U.S. perspective, there’s an outcome that is still desired that has not yet been achieved,” Dougherty told Reuters.

    The report also called for tighter restrictions on the sale of components that could enable China to build its own chipmaking machinery. Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Reuters that China is “attempting to rewrite the entire supply chain,” turning once niche equipment sectors into “battlegrounds.”

    Source: Reuters