ROK gets 'gift' for ceding tech firms' control to US

The Joe Biden administration will soon allow Samsung and SK Hynix to acquire the equipment they need from US companies to expand their chipmaking operations in China by putting the two chipmaking giants on its "List of Validated End Users", according to Seoul.

The gratitude the Yoon Suk-yeol government has expressed to the Biden administration after the US Department of Commerce put the Republic of Korea companies on the VEU list so they could continue to expand their operations in China is ironic. Ironic because the ROK eagerly joined the US-led "chip alliance" in order to check China's high-tech progress and yet it wants to expand chipmaking operations in China.

Although the Yoon government is blindly pro-US and thinks that serves the ROK's interests, it is actually seriously hurting the country's interests by subjecting its leading chip industry to the control of Washington. The fact that the ROK enterprises kept pressuring the Yoon government to request the United States administration to put them on the VEU list shows they have always been interested in expanding their business in China.

The VEU list in essence is no different from the Entity List of the US Commerce Department, as the country uses both the white and black lists to weaponize trade and technology so as to maintain its supremacy in high-tech at the cost of distorting global industry and supply chains. The ease with which Washington can put the ROK companies on the white list indicates the extent to which they have to surrender their autonomy to the US administration, all thanks to the Yoon government's blind support for the US' China-containment strategy.

It is against the backdrop of easing Sino-US relations over the past few months that Washington has done what Seoul considers a "favor". The question is: Will Washington remove the ROK companies from the list if Sino-US ties were to deteriorate again?

Seoul has no reason to feel grateful to Washington, because the strength and success of the ROK chipmaking companies are based on their mastery of high-tech, technological finesse and competitiveness, not on the US' condescending gifts. The US' manipulation of the ROK's economic cooperation with the latter's largest trading partner violates international rules, and hinders global scientific and technological exchanges.