The US on Monday released an updated list of Chinese companies that the Pentagon believes are supporting the country’s armed forces. It includes, among others, the e-commerce giant Alibaba, the search engine provider Baidu and the electric vehicle manufacturer BYD.
The announcement by the US Department of Defense came just weeks after a meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. At this time, both sides made efforts to maintain stability in bilateral relations.
An earlier version of the list was published by the Pentagon several months ago without explanation and then withdrawn. The updated list is very similar to the version briefly released in February.
Two memory processor manufacturers were re-blacklisted after being previously removed: ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies.
“This updated list of Chinese military contractors is a warning to American companies, all levels of government and the American people,” said Rep. John Moolenaar. Moolenaar is the Republican chairman of the House Special Committee on China.
In a statement, he called on U.S. companies to “stop doing business with these threats to our national security.” Otherwise, they risked “facilitating China’s military rise.”
The affected companies also include some of China’s largest technology companies involved in the artificial intelligence race. These include Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.
Baidu denied its inclusion on the list in a statement on Chinese social media. The company described the allegations as “completely baseless.”
“The claim that Baidu is a military company is completely baseless. We will not hesitate to use all means at our disposal to have the company delisted,” a spokesman said.
Alibaba called the listing “a mistake” and threatened legal action.
“Alibaba Group is not a Chinese military company and is not part of a military-civilian merger strategy,” the company said in a statement.
Trump invited Xi to visit Washington in September. However, the list could inflame tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
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