The changes would make it easier for American firms to obtain key minerals, delivering on what the White House said the two countries had agreed to at last month’s summit.
The Chinese government announced on Sunday that it would suspend export controls for a year on five critical minerals that are needed to manufacture certain semiconductors as well as explosives, armor-piercing ammunition, batteries and nuclear reactors.
The announcement, by the Ministry of Commerce, addressed a key difference between the statements issued by the Chinese government and the White House following a summit in South Korea on Oct. 30 between President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.
After that meeting, China said that it had agreed to a yearlong suspension of a series of export control regulations on rare earth metals and on equipment for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, semiconductors and solar panels. The Ministry of Commerce followed through on Friday by suspending these regulations.
However, China’s post-summit statement made no mention of easing separate controls that the ministry had imposed in December last year on five other critical materials, which are not rare earth metals. The White House statement said that China had also agreed to issue so-called general licenses, making it easier to obtain these other minerals as well.
There was some confusion after the summit about what exactly the two sides took away from the discussions. Mr. Trump had said that rare earths would no longer be an issue, while Beijing seemed to be more measured by enacting single-year suspensions.
The ministry’s action on Sunday still differed slightly from what the White House statement had described. The ministry suspended for one year the need for any export licenses for the five minerals, instead of issuing multiyear licenses.