March 3 (Reuters) – The Biden administration approved 192 licenses worth more than $23 billion to send U.S. goods and technology to Chinese companies on a U.S. trade blacklist in the first quarter of last year, according to a document released by a U.S. congressional committee on Friday . .
The 192 licenses awarded were out of 242 license applications decided between January and March 2022, a chart showed, and 115 of those approved contained controlled technology. Nineteen, or 8 percent of the total number of applications, were rejected and 31 were returned without action.
Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, released the license numbers on Friday after revealing at a hearing on Tuesday that licenses worth more than $23 billion had been approved for suppliers to companies in the US Commerce Department’s ” unit list” in the first quarter of 2022.
In a statement Friday, McCaul called the endorsements unacceptable. “This critical American technology goes to the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance and military efforts,” he said.
Latest updates
See 2 more stories
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) “must and can do more.”
The Ministry of Commerce defended the decisions.
“Each license reflected in this data – which primarily involves the export of low technology … and other goods that do not pose significant national security concerns … was carefully reviewed,” the agency said in a statement, explaining that the decisions were made by the departments for trade, defence, government and energy.
BIS also noted that licenses for some well-known Chinese companies are reviewed under policies set by the Trump administration that do not include presumptions of denial.
In addition, it pointed out that exporters generally submit license applications that have a higher probability of approval, that licenses are generally valid for four years, and that a significant number are not fully utilized.
Between November 2020 and April 2021, suppliers to China’s Huawei ( HWT.UL ) were awarded 113 licenses worth $61 billion, and another 188 licenses worth nearly $42 billion were given the green light to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp ( 0981.HK ) (SMIC), according to data first obtained by Reuters and published by McCaul in October 2021.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee agreed to release the latest data this week, but McCaul revealed only the $23 billion figure and not the details of the number of licenses at Tuesday’s hearing on countering Chinese aggression.
Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Sandra Maler
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.