**Bloomberg: “Alliance Negotiations and Manufacturer Lobbying Lead to Regulatory Easing”**
The Biden administration is considering additional regulations on the sale of semiconductor equipment and AI memory chips to China. However, it is reported that these measures might be less stringent than initially proposed. This news led to a significant rise in stock prices for global semiconductor equipment companies like ASML on the 28th (local time).
On the 28th, Bloomberg News, citing knowledgeable sources, reported that the Biden administration plans to announce new semiconductor regulations concerning China next week, but these will not be as stringent as the initially considered measures.
The moderation in these measures results from negotiations with allied countries like Japan and the Netherlands, strong lobbying by U.S. semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and months of deliberation by the U.S. Semiconductor manufacturers have warned that stricter regulations could severely damage the industry.
The new regulatory proposal differs from the initial draft and the scope of Chinese companies the U.S. plans to add to the trade restriction list.
Initially, the U.S. considered sanctions targeting six suppliers at the core of China’s tech industry, including entities related to Huawei, with the possibility of additional sanctions on at least six more companies. However, the final regulatory list reportedly includes only some of these suppliers. Notably, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), which is developing AI memory chip technology, was excluded from the sanctions, drawing attention.
Huatai Securities’ chief technology analyst, Leping Huang, assessed that the U.S. regulatory outlook appears better than the market’s worst-case concerns.
Consequently, the shares of major semiconductor equipment companies, including ASML from the Netherlands and Tokyo Electron from Japan, soared.
ASML’s stock rose by up to 5.5% on the New York Stock Exchange that day. Investment bank Jefferies had initially projected that ASML’s revenue from China would decline by about 30% next year, but it now forecasts a smaller decrease due to the easing of U.S. sanctions.
In the Tokyo stock market, Tokyo Electron rose by 7%, Screen Holdings by 5%, and Kokusai Electric by 13%.
Bloomberg reported that, last summer, the U.S. had warned these foreign companies about potentially restricting their sales to China directly, attempting a hardline strategy. However, both Japan and the Netherlands considered it “excessive interference.” Additionally, these nations showed little interest in further coordination with the Biden administration, anticipating Trump’s potential return to office.