U.S. Adds Chinese Tech Firms to Export Blacklist

The Biden administration has added seven Chinese tech companies to an export blacklist, accusing them of setting up supercomputers for China’s armed service.

The addition of the organizations to the Commerce Department’s Entity Listing usually means U.S. companies can’t export engineering to them without having a license. According to the department, they are “involved with setting up supercomputers utilized by China’s armed service actors, its destabilizing armed service modernization attempts, and/or weapons of mass destruction systems.”

“Supercomputing capabilities are important for the growth of a lot of — potentially pretty much all — modern weapons and nationwide safety methods, this sort of as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated in a information release.

“The Office of Commerce will use the complete extent of its authorities to avoid China from leveraging U.S. systems to guidance these destabilizing armed service modernization attempts,” she added.

The Entity Listing has existed for decades but as CNN studies, “during the Trump administration, the U.S. authorities started introducing Chinese businesses to the record at a quicker pace, commencing with organizations this sort of as Huawei, the world-wide telecommunications huge.”

Lindsay Gorman, a engineering specialist at the German Marshall Fund, stated that by employing a device that was often used by his predecessor, Biden experienced “put to bed” any sense that he would not be difficult on China.

“It was an open [question] no matter if a favored device of the Trump administration would be continued in the Biden administration,” he explained to the Money Situations.

The organizations added to the record on Thursday consist of Tianjin Phytium Facts Technologies, Shanghai High-Overall performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, and four Countrywide Supercomputing Facilities in Jinan, Shenzhen, Wuxi, and Zhengzhou.

“The U.S. is involved about China getting access to American engineering that can help the People’s Liberation Military near the gap with the U.S. armed service and subject weapons that could change the stability of ability in the Indo-Pacific,” the FT stated.

Phytium reportedly takes advantage of engineering from two California-centered organizations, Cadence Design Devices and Synopsys. The Entity Listing transfer would not bar them from giving the Chinese companies if that engineering is manufactured in amenities outside of the U.S.

Biden administration, blacklist, China, Commerce Office, Entity Listing, exports, supercomputing