China has begun requiring importers of Japanese dichlorosilane to lodge cash deposits of up to 99.2 percent with customs, following a preliminary finding that the chipmaking chemical was being dumped into the Chinese market. Japan protested the measure and said it was assessing the effects on its companies.
The provisional rates are 99.2 percent for Shin-Etsu Chemical, 80.8 percent for Denal Silane and 99.2 percent for other Japanese producers. They took effect Tuesday and apply to the customs value of covered imports, with China’s value-added tax included in the deposit calculation.
China’s Ministry of Commerce opened the anti-dumping investigation on January 7. In its preliminary decision, the ministry said Japanese imports had caused material harm to China’s domestic dichlorosilane industry and that dumping was the cause. Interested parties have ten days from the September 7 notice to submit comments before the investigation proceeds to a final ruling.
Dichlorosilane, usually shortened to DCS, is a colorless, flammable and toxic gas used in chemical vapor deposition. Chipmakers use the process to build thin layers of silicon, silicon nitride, silicon oxide and other materials on wafers. The covered product has purity above 99 percent and is used to make logic, memory and analog chips, as well as silicon-based precursor chemicals.
Japan is the leading producer of ultrapure DCS for semiconductor fabrication, according to the Associated Press. Shin-Etsu faces the highest listed rate. A deposit near the full customs value does not formally bar its product from China, but it ties up almost as much cash as the shipment itself while the provisional measure remains in force.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said Tokyo had protested and would respond appropriately to prevent unfair harm to Japanese companies. China described the action as a trade-remedy case under its anti-dumping regulations.
The measure covers a fabrication input rather than the finished accelerators at the center of US-China controls. Advanced manufacturing capacity remains concentrated among a small number of suppliers: TSMC’s raised capital budget this year was driven by demand for leading-edge nodes and advanced packaging, while China has expanded subsidies for domestic chips and AI infrastructure.
Beijing and Tokyo have been in a wider dispute since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that Japan could intervene if China used force against Taiwan. China has also imposed export controls on Japanese companies for dual-use products. The DCS deposits work in the opposite direction, restricting a Japanese material entering China rather than a Chinese product leaving it.
China’s domestic AI sector is trying to reduce its reliance on foreign accelerators, with DeepSeek planning a cluster of at least 160,000 Huawei chips. The dichlorosilane decision concerns the upstream materials used to fabricate chips, including the logic and memory components such clusters require.
Sources: China Ministry of Commerce, Associated Press
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By the Control Plane Editorial Team