Chip Photo: VCG

China said on Wednesday that it firmly opposes the US abuse of tariffs and unwarranted suppression of Chinese industries, and vowed it will take corresponding measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests if the US insists on going its own way after media reports that the US will impose tariffs on Chinese semiconductor products starting in June 2027. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian made the remarks at a regular press briefing when asked to comment on reports that the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) announced on Tuesday (local time) that it would impose tariffs on Chinese semiconductor products effective in 2027, with details to be announced at least one month in advance, and claimed it had conducted a year-long investigation into China's semiconductor industry. 

Lin warned that the US practice destabilizes global industrial and supply chains, stifles other countries' semiconductor industry, and serves no one's interests. 

We urged the US to correct its wrongdoings at once, act according to the important common understandings reached between the Chinese and US presidents, uphold the principles of equality, respect and mutual benefit, resolve each other's concerns through dialogue, properly manage differences, and keep China-US relations on a steady, sound and sustainable track, Lin said.  

If the US continues down the wrong path, China will take corresponding measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests, Lin noted. 

US President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday claimed that it would slap tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports over Beijing's so-called "unreasonable" pursuit of chip industry dominance, but would delay the action until June 2027, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

A Chinese expert said that the June 2027 timeline suggests there may still be room for dialogue, warning that if the tariffs are ultimately imposed, such moves would amount to weaponizing trade in ways that run counter to WTO rules, potentially harming the US' own high-tech sector and disrupting global semiconductor supply chains.

The initial tariff level will remain at zero for 18 months, increasing on June 23, 2027 "to a rate to be announced not fewer than 30 days prior to that date," the USTR wrote in a Federal Register notice, Bloomberg reported.

The tariff rate will be announced at least 30 days in advance, according to the filing, which follows a year-long Section 301 unfair trade practices investigation into China's exports of "legacy" chips to the US, launched by former president Joe Biden's administration, Reuters reported.

Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times that Washington's plans to impose tariffs mainly target mature-node chips, a segment that has seen some of the fastest growth in China in recent years. Through tariffs, the US aims both to ease competitive pressure on its domestic firms in the market for mature chips and to reduce reliance on Chinese chip supplies.

In December 2024, as Biden was nearing the end of his term, the USTR launched a Section 301 investigation into China's mature-node chip industry to assess its impact on the US economy. The Section 301 investigation initially focused on China's manufacturing of foundational semiconductors, also known as legacy or mature-node chips, including their use in downstream products across critical industries such as defense, automotive, medical devices, aerospace, telecommunications, and power and electrical grids, according to the USTR's official website.

The new probe, under the Section 232 national security statute, could heap more tariffs on Chinese semiconductors and a vast array of electronics devices containing them from all countries. But US officials are privately saying that they might not levy them anytime soon, according to Reuters.

The Trump administration has recently sent relatively restrained signals to avoid further escalating China-US trade tensions amid the current international and domestic environment, Zhou said. Against the backdrop of earlier consultations, Washington also appears intent on maintaining a relatively stable trade atmosphere so as not to disrupt potential high-level interactions and communication, he said.

The potential implementation date was set for June 2027 mainly because such investigations require lengthy processes for initiation, assessment and decision-making, Zhou said, noting that as for policy directions further down the line, there could be variables along the way, leaving room for communication.

As part of negotiations with China to delay those curbs, Washington pushed back a rule to restrict US tech exports to units of Chinese companies that were already blacklisted. It also launched a review that could result in the first shipments to China of Nvidia's second-most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Reuters reported, despite grave concerns from China hawks in the US who fear the chips could supercharge China's military. 

Meanwhile, the chip industry is awaiting the administration's decision on a much broader tariff investigation into global chip imports, according to the report.

Zhou stressed that the semiconductor industry is highly globalized, and tariffs alone are unlikely to reshape the industrial landscape. If the US ultimately moves forward, politicizing economic and trade issues could disrupt market mechanisms, drive up costs across the board, and even backfire on its own high-tech sector, while triggering ripple effects across multiple industries, including AI, and other countries, he said.

Previously, China responded with strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition after the USTR announced on December 23, 2024 (US time) the launch of a Section 301 investigation into China's chip industry-related policies.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce said on December 23, 2024 in a statement that China was strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this, noting that the US Section 301 investigations carry obvious unilateral and protectionist tendencies. 

The previous Section 301 tariffs have been ruled to violate WTO rules and were opposed by many WTO members, and China has lodged stern representations with the US multiple times, the spokesperson said at the time.  

The US has initiated a new Section 301 investigation into China's chip industry policies, aiming to suppress China for domestic political reasons. This will disrupt and distort the global semiconductor industry and supply chains and will also harm the interests of American businesses and consumers. It is repeating mistakes, the spokesperson said.