US flags more Chinese firms over alleged military connections

The Pentagon has added several major Chinese tech companies to its list of Chinese military companies, meaning that the US Department of War can no longer do business with these firms.

The list, also known as the Entity List or Covered List, now includes Chinese companies and their subsidiaries, like retail company Alibaba, search engine Baidu, and car manufacturer BYD.

The list of Chinese military companies has been around since 2021 and aims to identify Chinese companies with close ties to the Chinese military, either because they are directly controlled by the military or contribute to the defense and attack capabilities of China’s army.

A number of prominent Chinese tech companies included in the list are China Mobile, China Telecom, Dahua, HikVision, Huawei, Tencent, and ZTE.

Over the past few years, the US has updated the list numerous times, adding new Chinese tech companies to the index, such as DJI Technologies, TP-Link, and other manufacturers of foreign-made routers.

The Pentagon doesn’t provide many specifics as to why the Chinese tech companies have been added to the list, other than vague descriptions. For example, Alibaba and Baidu are now mentioned on the list because they’re deemed a “military-civil fusion contributor to the Chinese defense industrial base.”

BYD, on the other hand, allegedly is “directly affiliated with State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) and indirectly affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).”

Alibaba, BYD, and Baidu told the Associated Press (AP) that there’s no basis for including them on the list.

Adding these companies to the list may intensify the tensions between the US and China.

The Chinese embassy accused the US of “overstretching the concept of national security” and “making discriminatory lists to go after Chinese companies.”

“The US should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just, and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies,” the embassy said in a statement.