The U.S. Defense Department has added dozens of Chinese corporations, together with video games and expertise firm Tencent, synthetic intelligence agency SenseTime and the world’s greatest battery maker CATL, to an inventory of corporations it says have ties to China’s navy.
In current years, Washington has sought to limit sharing of superior expertise, together with semiconductors and AI, deeming it to be a risk to nationwide safety.
The U.S. Defense Department updates its checklist of “Chinese Military Companies,” or CMC checklist, yearly. With the newest revision, it contains 134 corporations. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2024 bans the Defense Department from coping with the designated corporations starting in June 2026.
Tencent’s Hong Kong-traded shares fell 7.3% on Tuesday and the corporate mentioned it will “provoke a reconsideration course of to right this error,” search talks with the U.S. Defense Department and if want be take authorized measures to get it faraway from the checklist. Tencent is the world’s largest video gaming firm and operates Chinese messaging platform WeChat.
Companies will search to have choice reversed
“As the corporate is neither a Chinese navy firm nor a military-civil fusion contributor to the Chinese protection industrial base, it believes that its inclusion within the CMC List is a mistake,” Tencent mentioned in an announcement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
“Unlike different lists maintained by the U.S. Government for sanctions or export management measures, inclusion within the CMC List relates solely to U.S. protection procurement, which doesn’t have an effect on the enterprise of the Group,” it mentioned.
Battery maker CATL mentioned in a press release posted on its web site that the corporate “has by no means engaged in any military-related enterprise or actions,” and mentioned that the designation would not have opposed affect on its operations.
Like Tencent, CATL maintains that its inclusion to the checklist was a “mistake” and that it will proactively have interaction with the Pentagon to “tackle the false designation” and take authorized motion if mandatory to guard firm and stakeholder curiosity. CATL’s inventory fell 2.84% in Shenzhen.
AI firm SenseTime mentioned in a press release that the choice to incorporate it on the checklist had “no factual foundation.”
“We firmly disagree with it,” SenseTime’s assertion mentioned, including that the choice has “no materials affect on our international operations.”
“SenseTime stays firmly dedicated to working collaboratively with the related stakeholders to handle this matter, and to safeguarding the pursuits of the corporate and our shareholders,” the corporate mentioned.
During a every day information briefing, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun urged the U.S. to “instantly right its incorrect practices, and carry the unlawful unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction on Chinese corporations.”
“China persistently and firmly opposes the U.S. overstretching the idea of nationwide safety, creating discriminatory lists beneath numerous pretexts, and unwarrantedly suppressing Chinese corporations, hindering China’s high-quality growth,” Guo mentioned.
