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 setting up supercomputers for China’s navy.

The addition of the providers to the Commerce Department’s Entity Checklist usually means U.S. corporations simply cannot export engineering to them with no a license. In accordance to the section, they are “involved with setting up supercomputers used by China’s navy actors, its destabilizing navy modernization efforts, and/or weapons of mass destruction programs.”

“Supercomputing abilities are vital for the improvement of lots of — maybe just about all — fashionable weapons and countrywide safety techniques, these kinds of as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a news release.

“The Section of Commerce will use the full extent of its authorities to reduce China from leveraging U.S. systems to assistance these destabilizing navy modernization efforts,” she added.

The Entity Checklist has existed for decades but as CNN stories, “during the Trump administration, the U.S. authorities started introducing Chinese enterprises to the record at a more quickly tempo, commencing with providers these kinds of as Huawei, the global telecommunications large.”

Lindsay Gorman, a engineering pro at the German Marshall Fund, said that by applying a software that was frequently employed by his predecessor, Biden had “put to bed” any perception that he would not be difficult on China.

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

The providers added to the record on Thursday include things like Tianjin Phytium Information Technological innovation, Shanghai Significant-Functionality Integrated Circuit Style Middle, Sunway Microelectronics, and four Nationwide Supercomputing Centers in Jinan, Shenzhen, Wuxi, and Zhengzhou.

“The U.S. is worried about China attaining access to American engineering that assists the People’s Liberation Army shut the hole with the U.S. navy and industry weapons that could change the stability of electric power in the Indo-Pacific,” the FT said.

Phytium reportedly makes use of engineering from two California-based mostly providers, Cadence Style Programs and Synopsys. The Entity Checklist go would not bar them from giving the Chinese corporations if that engineering is produced in facilities exterior of the U.S.

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