U.S. Adds Chinese Tech Firms to Export Blacklist

The Biden administration has added seven Chinese tech corporations to an export blacklist, accusing them of developing supercomputers for China’s navy.

The addition of the businesses to the Commerce Department’s Entity Listing usually means U.S. corporations cannot export technological know-how to them without the need of a license. According to the section, they are “involved with developing supercomputers used by China’s navy actors, its destabilizing navy modernization attempts, and/or weapons of mass destruction packages.”

“Supercomputing abilities are critical for the growth of numerous — most likely virtually all — modern-day weapons and countrywide security devices, this sort of as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a news release.

“The Section of Commerce will use the comprehensive extent of its authorities to avert China from leveraging U.S. systems to assist these destabilizing navy modernization attempts,” she added.

The Entity Listing has existed for several years but as CNN reviews, “during the Trump administration, the U.S. govt started introducing Chinese corporations to the listing at a a lot quicker rate, commencing with businesses this sort of as Huawei, the world wide telecommunications huge.”

Lindsay Gorman, a technological know-how qualified at the German Marshall Fund, said that by applying a tool that was regularly employed by his predecessor, Biden had “put to bed” any sense that he would not be hard on China.

“It was an open [dilemma] irrespective of whether a favored tool of the Trump administration would be continued in the Biden administration,” he explained to the Fiscal Times.

The businesses added to the listing on Thursday consist of Tianjin Phytium Details Technological know-how, Shanghai Substantial-General performance Built-in Circuit Style Center, Sunway Microelectronics, and four Nationwide Supercomputing Facilities in Jinan, Shenzhen, Wuxi, and Zhengzhou.

“The U.S. is involved about China gaining entry to American technological know-how that assists the People’s Liberation Army near the gap with the U.S. navy and area weapons that could alter the harmony of electric power in the Indo-Pacific,” the FT said.

Phytium reportedly employs technological know-how from two California-based businesses, Cadence Style Techniques and Synopsys. The Entity Listing shift would not bar them from giving the Chinese corporations if that technological know-how is developed in services exterior of the U.S.

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