Beijing: Chinese companies should be wary of buying U.S. chips as they are "no longer safe" and buy locally instead, four of the country's top industry associations said on Tuesday in a rare coordinated response to Washington's curbs.
The associations, which released similarly worded statements shortly after each other, did not go into details on why U.S. chips were unsafe or unreliable.
The associations cover some of China's largest industries, including telecommunications, the digital economy, autos, and semiconductors and combined count 6,400 companies as members.
Their advice could impact U.S. chipmaking giants like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel that, despite export controls, have managed to keep selling their products in the Chinese market.
It could also add to escalating trade tensions between two nations ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.
The Internet Society of China urged domestic companies to think carefully before procuring U.S. chips and seek to expand cooperation with chip firms from countries and regions other than the United States, according to its official WeChat account.
It also encouraged domestic firms to "proactively" use chips produced by both domestic and foreign-owned enterprises in China.
U.S. chip export controls have caused "substantial harm" to the health and development of China's internet industry, it added.
The China Association of Communication Enterprises said it no longer saw U.S. chip products as reliable or safe and the Chinese government should investigate how secure the supply chain of the country's critical information infrastructure was.
The warnings came after the United States on Monday launched its third crackdown in three years on China's semiconductor industry, curbing exports to 140 companies, including chip equipment maker Naura Technology Group.
They echo China's treatment of U.S. memory chipmaker Micron, which became the subject of a cybersecurity review last year shortly after the U.S. imposed export controls on chipmaking technology to China.
China later barred Micron from selling its chips to key domestic industries, impacting a low-double-digit percentage of its total revenue.
Intel has also faced scrutiny. In October, another influential industry group, the Cybersecurity Association of China, called for a security review of Intel products saying the U.S. chipmaker had "constantly harmed" the country's national security and interests.
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