The perpetual feud between U.S. and China has registered yet another attack on Chinese companies from the Western superpower, as it blacklists 33 Chinese companies for ties to weapons of mass destruction and China’s military.
The Department of Commerce states that the companies that made their way on the list were helping Beijing spy on its minority Uighur population. The decision coming from Donald Trump’s cabinet seems ironical, as the president has been accused of making racist remarks on many occasions himself. Nonetheless, the companies have now joined the list, which includes the likes of Huawei and HikVision, both big scale Chinese conglomerates.
The decision came after Communist Party rulers in Beijing on Friday unveiled details of a plan to impose national security laws on Hong Kong.
Companies that are now entering the “entity list” are NetPosa(an AI company whose facial recognition technology has been linked to the surveillance of Muslims), Qihoo360( a major cybersecurity firm), SoftBank backed CloudMinds, and at least one customer from Xilinx Inc, which makes programmable chips, among many others.
The Department of commerce states that seven companies and two institutions were listed for being “complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs.” Another 2 dozen companies were blacklisted to prevent the sale of crucial technology to Chinese military. Most of the companies that were blacklisted dealt in AI and facial recognition, tools that were used to form discriminatory patterns against Muslims, allegedly.
Last year, Huawei was added to the list, which marked the beginning of an era of darkness for company. The company’s sales declined rapidly, as it found itself in a position where it had to redesign everything from scratch, including a new OS. Moreover, as the company was finally starting to adjust to the situation, U.S. started landing a spree of attacks that aim at limiting chip supply for the company, last week. It isn’t sure if the new companies in the list will have similar fates, but prospects don’t look hopeful.
