China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) joined its US counterpart in calling for restraint on further chip trade restrictions by US authorities, with the group warning of industry fragmentation and irreparable global economic harm.

In a statement, the CSIA highlighted the scale and importance of the Chinese market for global partners and its long-running support in product development, which it asserted made an important contribution to people across the world including in emerging markets.

It stated further measures to disrupt the international supply chain could “risk the integrity of the global market and the prosperity of the global economy”.

The association also slated existing US government trade curbs it claims have disrupted supply chains across the world.

It indicated these types of measures harmed consumers and could jeopardise the competitiveness of the US semiconductor industry.

Tensions
The CSIA’s comments followed a call earlier this week from the US Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) for authorities in China and its country to “ease tensions and seek solutions through dialogue, not further escalation”.

IBM and Qualcomm are among the US SIA’s members.

The SIA urged US authorities to “refrain from further restrictions until it engages more extensively with industry and experts to assess the impact of current and potential restrictions to determine whether they are narrow and clearly defined, consistently applied, and fully coordinated with allies”.

Although praising efforts to boost the sector in the US with the Chips and Science act, the SIA noted “allowing the industry to have continued access to the China market, the world’s largest commercial market for commodity semiconductors, is important to avoid undermining the positive impact of this effort”.

“Repeated steps…to impose overly broad, ambiguous and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the US semiconductor industry’s competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China,” the SIA added.