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U.S. curbs Chinese drone maker, other firms accused of aiding rights abuses

Reuters

The United States imposed investment and export restrictions on dozens of Chinese companies in mid-December 2021, including drone maker DJI, accusing them of complicity in the oppression of China’s Uyghur minority or of helping the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Blaming DJI and seven other tech firms for supporting “the biometric surveillance and tracking” of Uyghurs, the U.S. Treasury Department added them to a list of entities suspected of having Chinese military links, barring U.S. citizens from trading in their securities.

Separately, the U.S. Commerce Department added China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and its 11 research institutes to a trade blacklist, restricting access to U.S. exports. It said the academy uses biotechnology for military uses, including “purported brain-control weaponry,” without defining the technology further. The academy’s president used the term in a 2015 Chinese military newspaper article outlining future warfare to describe “equipment that interferes with and controls human consciousness” during combat.

A four-year project by the academy’s head of brain science included China’s biggest gene firm, BGI, conducting genetic research on military recruits at high altitude in Tibet. Two BGI subsidiaries were put on the U.S. trade blacklist in 2020.

The U.S. Commerce Department also added HMN International, formerly Huawei Marine, Jiangsu Hengtong Marine Cable Systems, Jiangsu Hengtong OpticElectric, Shanghai Aoshi Control Technology Co. Ltd. and Zhongtian Technology Submarine Cable to the list over allegations of acquiring, or attempting to acquire, technology from the U.S. to help modernize the PLA.

The Chinese embassy in Washington called the actions “unwarranted suppression” that violated free trade rules, adding that Beijing would take “all essential measures” to uphold the interests of Chinese companies and research institutions.

A DJI spokesperson declined to comment. In 2020, after the U.S. Commerce Department prohibited the company from buying or using U.S. technology or components, DJI said it had done nothing to justify the ban. (Pictured: Drones and other products are displayed at DJI’s flagship store in Shenzhen, China.)

United Nations experts and human rights groups estimate that more than 1 million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in recent years in a vast system of camps in China’s far-west region of Xinjiang.

Chinese leaders deny the allegations and complain of interference in China’s internal affairs.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said China is choosing to use biotechnologies “to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups.”

“We cannot allow U.S. commodities, technologies, and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to U.S. national security,” she said in a statement.

As the trade and investment restrictions were announced,, the U.S. Senate passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would ban imports from Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill into law.

The investment ban, which will also apply to Megvii Technology Ltd. and Cloudwalk Technology Co. Ltd., was first imposed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and revised by President Biden. It prohibits U.S. entities from investing in dozens of Chinese companies, including chipmakers and oil producers, with alleged ties to the defense or surveillance technology sectors.

Suppliers to companies on the U.S. Commerce Department’s so-called entity list must seek a special license to ship goods to the targeted company..

In separate statements, Cloudwalk and Megvii said they opposed the U.S. Treasury Department’s decision, with Megvii adding that its inclusion on the list would not impact daily operations.

Chinese telecommunications equipment company Huawei Technologies and submarine cable maker HMN Technologies were added to the entity list in 2019.

Washington has become increasingly concerned about security threats posed by HMN’s role in building undersea internet cables, which have far greater data capacity than satellites. In 2020, it warned Pacific island nations about the company’s bid to participate in a project to improve communications in the region.

 

IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS

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