The United States is weighing its options on whether to halt General Electric from supplying jet engines for a new Chinese commercial aircraft, sources with knowledge of the matter said, adding doubts over China's moves to venture into the aerospace market.
The topic is seen to be tackled in an inter-division meeting on how to impose limits on exports of American technology to China and at another high-level discussion with members of US President Donald Trump's administration on February 28, sources disclosed.
The planned limitation on engine sales - potentially including restrictions on other parts for Chinese planes like avionics manufactured by Honeywell International Inc - is the latest issue in the the showdown between two of the biggest economies of the world over technology and trade.
The meeting will also cover other limitations on China, including whether to allow the continuity of a policy revision that would further reduce the capability of Huawei, China's premier telecom firm, to gain access to US software infrastructure.
Trump and his advisers have been very watchful of China's aggressive trade and military activities, including its strategy to integrate its commercial and defense platforms are known as a civil-military merger.
China's industrial campaign such as the 'Made In China 2025' have promoted multi-use innovation like automation, information technology and commercial flight to boost the country's economy as well as military capabilities.
The United States has backed American entities' business with China's growing civil aviation market for many years. In fact, the US government has approved licenses that allow American companies to sell flight control systems and engines and other parts for China's first large passenger plane, the COMAC C919.
However, the Trump administration is studying whether to prevent GE's latest approval request to provide the CFM LEAP-1C engine for the Chinese jet, sources said, although General Electric has received licenses for the LEAP engines as early as 2014 and was last approved in March last year. The CFM LEAP engine is a joint program of France's Safran Aircraft Engines and General Electric.
China's efforts to make its own commercial planes with the same quality as that of international rivals like Airbus and Boeing have long faltered. Instead, CFM and Safran have been the ones providing the planes' engines to China for years as part of the country's goals of boosting its airline industry.
But future permit approvals for such sales for COMAC's commercial planes may be up for thorough discussions. Honeywell also has been working on a license for avionics technology to join in the manufacture of the C929, China's proposed wide-body aircraft program with Russia, sources said.
