BEIJING: China’s Commerce Ministry has lodged a firm protest against the latest rules by the US against telecommunications networking giant Huawei. Beijing said it would take all necessary measures to safeguard the Chinese company’s rights and interests – but didn’t spell out what that action would be.

Chinese’s Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, pictured,urged the US to immediately stop what it called the wrong actions.

Last week the Trump Administration moved to block global chip supplies to Huawei Technologies, which the White House has blacklisted.

Shares in the semiconductor sector were hammered yesterday as investors feared Chinese retaliation.

China’s state-run newspaper, the Global Times, said Beijing is ready to put US companies on an “unreliable entity list” as part of countermeasures.

This will also include investigations into – and imposing restrictions on –  US companies such as Apple, Cisco and Qualcomm.