Dramatic Turnaround in China's Attitude to US Chipmaker Micron

China’s attitude to Micron Technology – a prominent US chipmaker – has warmed up as relations between Beijing and Washington improve.

On Wednesday (November 1), China’s commerce minister told Micron Technology’s president that Beijing would welcome the US semiconductor company expanding its operations in the country.

Minister Wang Wentao told Micron president and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra that China would optimize the environment for foreign investment and provide service guarantees for foreign enterprises, according to a brief statement published on Friday on the commerce ministry’s website.

“We welcome Micron Technology to continue to take root in the Chinese market and achieve better development under the premise of complying with Chinese laws and regulations,” Wang added.

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The detente comes just months after China’s cyberspace regulator said Micron had failed a network security review and barred Chinese operators of key infrastructure from buying products from the US’s largest memory chipmaker.

China’s move against Micron was widely seen as retaliation for Washington’s efforts to restrict Beijing’s access to key technology.

It came just a day after the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations agreed they would look to “de-risk, not decouple” from China, and as Washington pressured its allies to join it in restricting chip equipment exports to China.

The meeting on Wednesday between Wang and Mehrotra is line with a recent thawing in tensions between Washington and Beijing, as officials from both countries work to organise a meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.