GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to cut off a Chinese state-backed chipmaker from U.S. suppliers amid allegations the firm stole intellectual property breaks World Trade Organization rules and aims to protect a U.S. monopoly, China told a WTO meeting on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO - U.S. and Chinese flags are placed for a joint news conference by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China June 14, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

The meeting took place with the world’s top two economies already locked in a trade dispute and tit-for-tat tariff war.

Last month the U.S. Commerce Department put Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd on a list of entities that cannot buy components, software and technology goods from U.S. firms.

U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology Inc MU.O, a maker of memory chips with factories in Virginia and Utah, has accused Jinhua and Taiwanese partner United Microelectronics Corp 2303.TW of stealing its chip designs in a lawsuit in California.

“We consider this an unwarranted charge and firmly oppose the presumption of guilt to our companies,” a Chinese official told the WTO, according to a transcript of remarks seen by Reuters.

Washington is concerned the Chinese firm could flood the market with cheap chips of the same type made by U.S. companies that supply the U.S. military.

Should the U.S. chipmakers go out of business, the military would lose a supplier for an item that must come from the United States, presenting a national security threat.

The Chinese official said that Jinhua had not yet started production and was far from threatening DRAM (dynamic random access memory) circuit manufacturers in the United States.

“In our point of view, the real purpose of the U.S. measures is to maintain the monopoly interests of the U.S. DRAM industry,” he said.

A U.S. official declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Jinhua and United Microelectronics countersued Micron in China, where courts sided with them and banned some of Micron’s chips in China.