U.S. Cracks Down on Chinese Tech Firms

DJI drones

The Biden administration has slapped an expenditure ban on eight Chinese tech companies, citing their help for Beijing’s repression of the Uyghur minority.

The latest additions to a list of firms designated as owned or controlled by the Chinese armed service incorporates DJI, which is the biggest maker of drones. Under a Trump-era govt buy, Individuals can not trade in the securities of companies on the list.

The eight companies actively help the biometric surveillance and tracking of ethnic and religious minorities in China, especially the predominantly Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, according to the Treasury Office.

“Today’s motion highlights how private firms in China’s protection and surveillance technologies sectors are actively cooperating with the government’s attempts to repress members of ethnic and religious minority teams,” Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Fiscal Intelligence, reported in a news release.

“Treasury continues to be committed to making sure that the U.S. monetary system and American investors are not supporting these actions,” he additional.

In a linked transfer, the Commerce Office additional China’s Academy of Armed service Medical Sciences and its eleven analysis institutes to a trade blacklist, limiting accessibility to U.S. exports.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondi reported China was applying biotechnology and health care innovation “to pursue management more than its persons and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority teams.”

In accordance to Axios, “The U.S. is cracking down aggressively on virtually any corporation — American or Chinese — thought to be complicit in the Chinese government’s genocide of Uyghur Muslims in the northwest region of Xinjiang.”

The U.S. experienced additional DJI to the trade blacklist final yr. The corporation “has furnished drones to the Xinjiang Public Stability Bureau, which are made use of to surveil Uyghurs in Xinjiang,” the Treasury Office reported.

The seven other entities on Treasury’s list consist of Cloudwalk Technologies, Dawning Information and facts, Leon Technologies, Megvii Technologies, Netposa Systems, Xiamen Meiya Information and facts, and Yitu.

The Chinese embassy in Washington called the actions “unwarranted suppression” that violated no cost trade rules, adding that Beijing would choose “all important measures” to uphold the pursuits of Chinese companies and analysis establishments.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Pictures

blacklist, China, Commerce Office, Treasury Office, Uyghur