China vows 'forceful measures' after Taiwan's Huawei export curb

Beijing vowed to respond to Taiwan’s “technological blockades” after the self-ruled island blacklisted Chinese companies including Huawei Technologies Co., limiting their ability to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

“We will take forceful measures to resolutely safeguard the normal order of cross-strait economic and trade exchange,” Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian said Wednesday at a regular briefing in Beijing. She was responding to a question about Taiwan’ recent curbs on Chinese companies, and didn’t elaborate on how Beijing would respond.

Taiwan last week joined a years-long US campaign to curtail China’s technological ascent by adding the country’s AI and chipmaking champions — Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. — to its entity list. That bars the island’s firms from doing business with the pair without a license, the first time Taipei has used the blacklist on major Chinese companies.

The new restrictions are likely to, at least partially, cut off Huawei and SMIC’s access to Taiwan’s plant construction technologies, materials and equipment essential to build AI chips, like those made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for the likes of Nvidia Corp.