For those who came in late China's cyberspace regulator said on 21 May that Micron, the biggest U.S. memory chip maker, had failed its network security review and that it would block operators of key infrastructure from buying from the company, prompting it to predict a revenue reduction.

All this would be news to those in the security industry as memory is rarely used as an attack vector for hackers. However, it is remarkably similar to the allegations that the US made against Chinese phone maker Huawei.

Now the US has said it will not tolerate China's effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such "economic coercion."

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. "firmly opposes" China's actions against Micron. These "target a single US company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful."