The U.S. government has added a couple of Chinese companies to its already extensive blacklist for allegedly “supporting China’s military modernization.”
Inspur Group Co Ltd and Loongson Technology became the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth entities added to the China section of the list earlier this month.
While the list does not explicitly detail how these entities are related to the Chinese military, every company in China is required to comply with the decisions of the Chinese government and, by extension, military decisions.
US bans more Chinese companies
Inspur claims to be China’s leading provider of cloud computing and big data services, focusing on cloud data centers, cloud services and big data, smart cities and smart enterprises, providing its services to governments and other agencies in more than 100 countries and regions.
The company has worked with many leading Western and global computer companies, including IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel and AMD, which made the timing of the decision somewhat puzzling.
Loongson is the company best known for producing chips that are said to be enough to rival Intel’s and AMD’s latest offerings.
Going forward, any US hardware, software and services companies or foreign companies using US technology will need to apply for a US export license which is denied by default unless approved.
The move is likely to increase tensions even further as the two giant economies clash in a tech war that has become more apparent in recent years.
The List of entities (opens in a new tab) includes organizations “for which there are reasonable grounds to believe, on the basis of specific and articulate facts, that the beneficiaries have been involved, are involved, or have a significant risk of being or engaging in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States “.
Currently, 28 of the 38 entries on the list are from the People’s Republic of China, with other entries from Pakistan, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, and Taiwan in order of importance.