China yesterday criticized the United States for putting a dozen Chinese companies on its trade blacklist over national security and foreign policy concerns, citing in some cases their help developing the Chinese military's quantum computing efforts.
The Chinese additions to the blacklist maintained by the US commerce department comes amid growing tensions between Beijing and Washington over the status of Taiwan and trade issues.
The department also said several entities and individuals from China and Pakistan were added to the Commerce Department's Entity List for contributing to Pakistan's nuclear activities or ballistic missile program. In total, 27 new entities were added to the list from China, Japan, Pakistan, and Singapore.
China strongly opposes the sanctions on the Chinese companies, and will lodge solemn representations with the United States, Shu Jueting, a spokesperson for the Chinese commerce ministry, said at a news conference yesterday.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the new listings will help prevent US technology from supporting the development of Chinese and Russian "military advancement and activities of non-proliferation concern like Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear activities or ballistic missile program."
Meanwhile, a Chinese regulatory official said Chinese authorities are working with US counterparts to prevent Chinese firms from being delisted from US stock exchanges, as a lengthy dispute about auditing standards rumbles on.
"We don't think that delisting of Chinese firms from the US market is a good thing either for the companies, for global investors or Chinese-US relations," Shen Bing, director general of the China Securities Regulatory Commission's department of international affairs, told a conference in Hong Kong.
China is trying to prevent its firms from being delisted at US exchanges. AFP
