The Biden administration will put eight Chinese companies, including DJI, the world’s largest maker of commercial drones, on an investment blacklist for allegedly engaging in surveillance of Muslim minorities. Uyghur.
The US Treasury Department will blacklist DJI and other companies from “Chinese military-industrial complex companies” on Thursday, according to two people briefed on the way. American investors are not allowed to buy financial shares in 60 Chinese corporations that have been blacklisted.
The measure marks the latest attempt by US President Joe Biden to punish China for its crackdown on the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
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Last week, SenseTime, the facial recognition software company, postponed its planned IPO in Hong Kong after the Financial Times reported that the US would blacklist the company.
Other Chinese companies that will be sanctioned on Thursday include Megvii, Sense Time’s main rival, who abandoned plans to delist Hong Kong last year after being placed on a separate US blacklist. and Dawning Information Industry, a supercomputer manufacturer that operates cloud computing services in Hong Kong, Xinjiang.
CloudWalk Technology, a facial recognition software company, Xiamen Meiya Pico, a cybersecurity group in partnership with law enforcement, Yitu Technology, an artificial intelligence company, Leon Technology, an electrical company cloud computing and NetPosa Technologies, a maker of cloud-based surveillance systems, will also be added to CMIC. black list.
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DJI and Megvii are not publicly traded, but Dawning Information, also known as Sugon, is listed in Shanghai and trades Leon, NetPosa and Meiya Pico in Shenzhen.
All eight companies were on the Commerce Department’s “entity list,” which prohibits U.S. companies from exporting technology or products from the United States to Chinese corporations without a government license.
The White House did not comment and the Treasury did not respond to a request for comment.
DJI declined to comment.
But last year, it said it had “nothing to put on the entity list” after being added to the commerce department’s export blacklist at the end of former President Donald Trump’s tenure.
The commerce division is also expected to add more than two dozen Chinese companies to the entity list on Thursday, including several related to biotechnology, according to people familiar with the pending action. physical. The Commerce Department did not respond to a request for comment.
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The sanctions come amid a tough US stance towards China’s policy in Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are held in makeshift camps. prison. The White House announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing last week.
Reuters with additional input by GVS