The U.S. Commerce Department has blacklisted over 30 Chinese companies, citing their ties to Beijing’s military and its hypersonic weapons program. These companies, including a network of resellers that provided advanced American technology to China, have been added to the Entity List, which bars the export of U.S. technology to designated groups without a government license. Among them are three firms that resold U.S.-made aerodynamics technology produced by Pennsylvania-based Ansys and Siemens Digital Industries Software to Chinese universities that develop hypersonic technology. Another blacklisted Chinese firm facilitated sales of advanced U.S. optics technology to the China Air-to-Air Missile Research Institute in Luoyang. These resellers had openly advertised their work with the Chinese defense industry.
“These entities have demonstrable ties to activities of concern, including hypersonic weapons development, design and manufacture of air-to-air missiles, hypersonic flight modeling, and weapon life cycle management using Western software,” says the Commerce Department in a notice outlining the new controls on Monday.
These latest bans come as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Beijing next week in a bid to improve relations between the two countries. Tensions between the U.S. and China have escalated over a range of issues including American efforts to contain China’s access to semiconductors and other competitive technologies used for military purposes.
The list has become a major point of tension in Beijing, where officials dismiss it as a tool for illegally suppressing Chinese firms. Other additions this year include five Chinese firms linked to Beijing’s airship program. The 30 newly blacklisted Chinese groups are among 43 entities added this week, including five from the United Arab Emirates, four from Pakistan and three from South Africa. Several of those companies are aviation groups, sanctioned for their ties to programs training Chinese military pilots using Western and NATO resources, says the Commerce Department notice.
The sanctions follow reports that potentially dozens of pilots from countries including Germany and the United Kingdom have been recruited by China to train members of the People’s Liberation Army. Two of the firms blacklisted by the United States this week are U.K. aviation training entities, though the Commerce Department did not specify whether they were linked to the previously reported recruitment programs.
Other firms added to the Entity List include six Chinese firms that the Commerce Department says conspired to violate U.S. export laws in a scheme to provide the PLA Navy with U.S. military-grade vessels and equipment. Two further firms were added to the list for distributing surveillance and biometrics technology to Chinese police, including authorities in Xinjiang, where experts estimate over 1 million ethnic Uyghurs have been detained in recent years as part of a broad crackdown.
Beijing has sharply criticized the fresh bans and accused the United States of abusing state power to “hysterically” destabilize global supply chains and “go after” Chinese firms. “We firmly oppose these acts taken by the U.S. and demand that it immediately stop using military and human rights-related issues as pretexts to politicize, instrumentalize and weaponize trade and tech issues, and stop abusing export control tools such as entity lists to keep Chinese companies down,” says Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. “China will continue to do what is necessary to firmly safeguard the lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies.”
The export restrictions on blacklisted firms and individuals, along with a broader U.S. campaign to counter China&https://adarima.org/?aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3J5cHRvLmNsdWIvY2F0ZWdvcnJ5Lz93cHNhZmVsaW5rPWJNZmtDWlZGTnh3QXBic0NhZGZFZUZsZ2lIbmlrTDNsM1psVnVaVlZOVms1UGRGRlBlV0kwUkRCaFp6MDk-8217;s strategic acquisition of American technology, mark a significant shift in the U.S.-China relationship. Until relatively recently, American policymakers viewed China&https://adarima.org/?aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3J5cHRvLmNsdWIvY2F0ZWdvcnJ5Lz93cHNhZmVsaW5rPWJNZmtDWlZGTnh3QXBic0NhZGZFZUZsZ2lIbmlrTDNsM1psVnVaVlZOVms1UGRGRlBlV0kwUkRCaFp6MDk-8217;s rise primarily through the prism of economic opportunity, emphasizing cooperation with Beijing even as concerns about China&https://adarima.org/?aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3J5cHRvLmNsdWIvY2F0ZWdvcnJ5Lz93cHNhZmVsaW5rPWJNZmtDWlZGTnh3QXBic0NhZGZFZUZsZ2lIbmlrTDNsM1psVnVaVlZOVms1UGRGRlBlV0kwUkRCaFp6MDk-8217;s military expansion and human rights record mounted. But the Trump administration abandoned that approach and branded China a geopolitical rival that sought to undermine Western values and standards of governance. The Biden administration has largely continued that policy shift, deepening ties with traditional American allies such as Japan and South Korea even as it seeks avenues of strategic cooperation with China.
