Exclusive-Chinese chip firm should go on U.S. trade blacklist, after Micron ban -- lawmaker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department should add Chinese memory chip maker Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) to a trade blacklist after Beijing earlier this week banned the sale of some chips by U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc, the chair of the U.S. House of Representatives' committee on China said on Tuesday.

The restrictions this week by China's cyberspace regulator against Micron, the biggest U.S. memory chipmaker, were the latest in a widening trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.

"The United States must make clear to the PRC (People's Republic of China) that it will not tolerate economic coercion against its companies or its allies. The Commerce Department should immediately add ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) to the entity list and ensure no U.S. technology, regardless of specifications, goes to CXMT, YMTC, or other PRC firms operating in this industry," Representative Mike Gallagher said in a statement.

YMTC, which refers to Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp, is a Chinese chipmaker put on the entity list December 2022.

The powerful lawmaker also added that "no U.S.-export licenses granted to foreign semiconductor memory firms operating in (China) are used to backfill Micron, and our South Korean allies, who have experienced exactly this kind of CCP (Chinese Communist Party) economic coercion firsthand in recent years, should likewise act to prevent backfilling," Gallagher said.

(Reporting by Chris Sanders and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Chris Reese and Anna Driver)

By Stephen Nellis and Karen Freifeld