The United States is "politicizing and weaponizing economic and sci-tech issues," and this is "blatant economic coercion and bullying in the field of technology," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday at a news briefing.

Wang said this in response to the Biden administration's plan to place Chinese chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and 30 other Chinese firms on a trade blacklist, which would prevent them from buying certain American components.

The U.S. Department of Commerce would add the Chinese companies to a so-called Entity List as early as this week, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Once a company is added to the entity list, its U.S. suppliers must seek a special license to ship even low-tech items to it.

Wang said the U.S. has been "stretching the concept of national security, abusing export control measures, engaging in discriminatory and unfair treatment against enterprises of other countries."

"It is detrimental to market rules and the international trade order, and gravely threatens the stability of the global industrial and supply chains," Wang said, adding that China would resolutely safeguard the lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies and institutions.

Earlier in October, 31 entities, including YMTC, were added to a list of companies that U.S. officials have been unable to inspect.

In addition, the U.S. published a sweeping set of export controls on October 7, including a measure to cut China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment. 

Reuters on Wednesday reported that the ramping up production of a decade-old chip technology by China's largest chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation has set off alarm bells in the U.S., prompting some lawmakers to try to stop them. 

The 28 nanometer chips made by the company are "key to many industries' supply chains," it added.

"The U.S.' abuse of export control measures has hindered normal international trade of chips and other products. It distorts the global supply chain of semiconductors and disrupts global trade," said Wang at a news briefing on Tuesday.

China's Ministry of Commerce on Monday had filed a trade dispute with the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the semiconductor export controls.

The U.S.' control seemed to have worked to some extent in the short term, but it have also shot themselves in the foot and harmed the long-term interests and development prospects of the domestic semiconductor industry, according to an article on the Ecns.cn, written by Tu Xinquan, dean at the China Institute for WTO Studies under the University of International Business and Economics, and assistant researcher Li Jiantong.

It "lacks legitimacy and rationality" and the implementation of such policies will only make all countries or regions in the semiconductor industry chain become losers, it added.

"It is urgent for the U.S. to … amend its current irrational practices and lift export controls on products and technologies that do not concern its national security," said the article, adding that the country should "stop the deliberate suppression of Chinese companies and remove entities that lack clear evidence and reasonable reasons from the list."

(With input from Reuters)