The US has added a number of Chinese language expertise corporations, together with gaming and social media big Tencent and battery maker CATL, to an inventory of companies it says work with China’s army.
The record serves as a warning to American corporations and organisations in regards to the dangers of doing enterprise with Chinese language entities.
Whereas inclusion doesn’t imply an instantaneous ban, it may well add strain on the US Treasury Division to sanction the corporations.
Tencent and CATL have denied involvement with the Chinese language army, whereas Beijing mentioned the choice amounted to “unreasonable suppression of Chinese language corporations”.
The Division of Protection’s (DOD) record of Chinese language army corporations, which is formally often called the Part 1260H record, is up to date yearly and now consists of 134 corporations.
It’s a part of Washington’s method to counteracting what it sees as Beijing’s efforts to extend its army energy by utilizing expertise from Chinese language corporations, universities and analysis programmes.
In response to the most recent announcement Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, mentioned its inclusion on the record was “clearly a mistake.”
“We aren’t a army firm or provider. Not like sanctions or export controls, this itemizing has no impression on our enterprise,” it mentioned in an announcement to Reuters information company.
CATL additionally referred to as the designation a mistake and mentioned it “is just not engaged in any army associated actions.”
“The US’s practices violate the market competitors ideas and worldwide financial and commerce guidelines that it has at all times advocated, and undermine the boldness of overseas corporations in investing and working in the USA,” mentioned Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese language embassy in Washington.
The Pentagon had come underneath strain from US lawmakers so as to add a few of the corporations, together with CATL, to the record.
This strain got here as US automobile making big Ford mentioned it might make investments $2bn (£1.6bn) to construct a battery plant in Michigan. It has mentioned it plans to license expertise from CATL.
Ford didn’t instantly reply to a BBC request for remark.
The announcement comes as relations between the world’s two greatest economies stay strained.
In the meantime, President-elect Donald Trump, who has beforehand taken a tricky stance towards Beijing, is because of return to the White Home this month.
The Pentagon was sued final final yr by drone maker DJI and Lidar-maker Hesai Applied sciences over their inclusion on the record. They each stay on the up to date record.
