Japan to amend export regulations of semiconductor technology

As concerns grow over China’s regional aggression, the Kishida administration is set to introduce export controls designed to impede the use of cutting-edge semiconductor technology for military applications this spring, multiple government sources have said.

The sources said Saturday that the government will amend a ministerial ordinance under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act — which requires permission from the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry when exporting certain products and technologies — to prevent manufacturing equipment from being utilized to make semiconductors.

A draft of the revised ministerial ordinance is expected to be released in the near future. The government will solicit opinions from companies and other related parties to introduce the regulatory measures in the spring.

The move comes as Japan has agreed to cooperate with the wide range of regulatory tightening, which was announced by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden last October.

Amid the increasing risk of a crisis in Taiwan, the battle for tech supremacy is intensifying — particularly with semiconductors, which are directly linked to military power.

Yet the new regulations will not explicitly name China, in an effort not to trigger retaliatory measures.

The U.S. also requested cooperation from the Netherlands, which, along with Japan, boasts advanced manufacturing technologies. Washington and Amsterdam reached an agreement late last month.

As Japan and the Netherlands are concerned about the impact on their domestic firms operating in the Chinese market, both countries will draft their own measures.

The U.S. has set the main target of regulation to be advanced semiconductor technologies with circuit line widths of 14 nanometers or less. Japan’s revision of the ministerial ordinance is expected to cover similar products.

The Biden administration’s tightening of regulations has prohibited the export to China of products that use U.S. technology, including those from foreign manufacturers, but the new ordinance will close a loophole by expanding the scope to include products that do not have U.S. technology.

The new export control measures will likely affect the world’s leading chip equipment makers, such as Tokyo Electron and the Netherlands’ ASML, both of which have advanced semiconductor miniaturization technology.

Claiming that the move by the U.S. is unjust, China filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization in December. The U.S.-China conflict has heightened, as the U.S. has also added 36 Chinese companies and organizations, including semiconductor manufacturers, to a de facto embargo list. JapanTimes