Another Chinese semiconductor player is reportedly in dire straits, leaving wages unpaid and making employees leave, as the viability of China’s domestic industry remains questionable under United States sanctions on overseas investment.

A staff member of Quanxin Integrated Circuit Manufacturing in Shandong province told mainland trade publication ijiwei.com that the company’s situation was worrying, saying employees were forced to leave because their April wages had not been paid.

Job advertisements for the company can be found online. When a Radio Free Asia reporter called the person responsible for the adverts on Thursday and asked whether recruitment was still taking place, the woman who answered said only that there was no problem and everything was normal before quickly hanging up the phone.

Calls to the company itself on the same day went unanswered.

Quanxin was founded in January 2019 and claimed to be the largest semiconductor company in Shandong. The company’s alleged troubles surfaced months after another chipmaker, Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., wound up its operations in February and dismissed all staff amid suspicion of large-scale fraud.

The end of the Wuhan company renewed attention on its founding member, who calls himself Cao Shan. According to mainland media reports, Cao Shan is also a major shareholder in Quanxin, raising questions about the extent of his activities in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry.

Quanxin’s business is listed as a key project in Shandong, with state investment totaling more than 500 million yuan (US$77.7 million).

The Jinan city branch of China’s regulator for state-owned enterprises, the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, played an audio message when contacted by Radio Free Asia. The message said phone calls were limited and asked that they not be made without authorization.

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