Biden's undersecretary of commerce Estevez: We blocked China's way
Alan Estevez was under the undersecretary of commerce in charge of industry and security under Joe Biden, and was responsible for policies designed to slow down China's semiconductor and artificial intelligence industries by cutting off access to critical U.S. technology, along with White House official Tarun Chhabra.
In its last weeks, the Department of Commerce has announced many important rules, including a global licensing regimen for artificial intelligence data center chips, which has summed the industry's resistance and criticism from the European Commission.
Speaking to the Financial Times (FT), Estevez admitted to smart engineers that US policy could do nothing more than slowing down China because it had the money to invest and government support.
However, he defended Washington's success by pointing to the statements of Chinese artificial intelligence groups that identified US export controls as the main obstacles.
"We have certainly hindered the People's Republic of China's ability to produce these chips and thus influenced their ability to develop large language models," Estevez said, referring to models that power AI products.
According to the FT, the defiding undersecretary was caught between two forces: American companies and some allies who believe that the U.S. has gone too far, and critics who want the administration to take tougher and faster steps against China and its military.
Estevez, who also opposed the criticism of the latest AI rule that divides countries into three levels in terms of ease of access to US chips, said that unlike chipmaking equipment manufacturers that oppose other export controls, complaints such as Nvidia cause more criticism because they are well-known names.
Over the past four years, Estevez and Chhabra have conducted long and often contentious talks with allies, especially Japan and the Netherlands, to create a seamless export control regime for chip production vehicles.
Tokyo and The Hague eventually acknowledged many of Washington's forced actions, after threats; the fkat talks underlined a problem for the U.S. and its allies: China's retaliation.
Beijing threatened Japan to restrict exports of two critical minerals of gallium and germanium if it moved with Washington.
Explaining the need to reduce Beijing's ability to create blockages that make it difficult for the U.S. and its allies to take action against China, Estevez said, “We need to think more about how to free ourselves from hostile supply chains. What I wish we had done earlier is to share our [allies] with our intelligence and the places we see threats," he said.
Estevez stated that some companies have a hard time understanding the implications of selling technology to China on national security, especially that they have been focusing on this market for decades before Washington became more hawking against Beijing.
“For the American business world, this situation was like 'gung ho', until it suddenly didn't happen. I don't think everyone understands where these lines are in their strategic mindset," Estevez said, adding that the U.S. government should do a better job of explaining the risks to companies without security permission.
Estevez argued that the US was “really successful” in using equipment-targeting controls that went to Huawei-linked manufacturing facilities.
But he acknowledged that when the US discovered that Huawei had built chip production facilities in 2023, it could not act immediately, partly because unilateral moves would not be effective, and also needed more intelligence to explain the threat to its allies and seek cooperation.