The precedent of lifting US sanctions against Chinese lidar maker Hesai appears to have inspired other Chinese companies on the US defense blacklist, as chip equipment maker AMEC followed a similar path by protesting its inclusion. this list is in January of this year.
Image source: AMEC
Let us recall that the mentioned list contains a list of Chinese companies that the Pentagon suspects of connections with the Chinese army. AMEC was included in it in January of this year, and is now trying to prove that this was done without reason and by mistake. In its lawsuit, which was filed in a US court, AMEC claims that it has “never been involved in any activities related to the defense industry.”
In the lawsuit, AMEC claims that the US defense department damaged its business and reputation by including the Shanghai company on a list of firms associated with the Chinese military. Pentagon officials spent months responding to a request for more information, then based their decision on AMEC’s receipt of an award from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Hesai filed a similar lawsuit in May, and now has reason to claim that it was excluded from this list. It is difficult to predict how long it will take for AMEC to succeed. As it turns out, this is not the first attempt by US authorities to accuse AMEC of having ties to the Chinese defense industry. The first was undertaken in January 2021, but by June the company managed to prove its innocence. Chairman and CEO Gerald Yin said, “We are deeply shocked by AMEC’s re-listing as a military-related company. Such an appointment is erroneous and groundless.” AMEC produces equipment for etching silicon wafers; in the first quarter of this year, the company increased its revenue by 31% to $223 million. Domestic demand for such equipment in China is fueled by the desire of local chip manufacturers to switch to a domestic technological base.