On Thursday, the United States (US) blacklisted eight Chinese firms for misusing biotechnology by helping the Chinese government carry out “biometric surveillance and tracking” of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken linked these firms to China’s Defence and Surveillance Technology sectors, which have been accused of human rights violations against religious and ethnic minorities.
“One of these companies developed customised software that supposedly recognises specific ethnic minorities, including Tibetans and Uyghurs, and alert authorities when it finds them,” Blinken said in a statement. He added, “Some of the identified companies have exported surveillance technologies to other countries with poor human rights records.”
Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson affirmed his department’s support, saying, “Treasury remains committed to ensuring that the US financial system and American investors are not supporting these activities.”
The eight listed companies are: SZ DJI Technology, Cloudwalk Technology, Dawning Information Industry, Leon Technology Company, Megvii Technology, Netposa Technologies, Xiamen Meiya Pico Information, and Yitu. Drone manufacturer DJI, in particular, is considered a major player in the US, and is backed by Silicon Valley heavyweight investors Sequoia Capital China and Kleiner Perkins.
In response to these measures, Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson of China’s embassy in Washington, accused the US of violating free rules and said, “China’s development of biotechnology has always been for the well-being of mankind. The relevant claims of the US side are totally groundless.”
Likewise, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian asserted that China supports human rights and has made facts related to the situation in Xinjiang transparent. He said, “China always opposes the US moves to overstretch the concept of national security and exert unwarranted suppression on Chinese companies.”
Washington has increasingly intensified its crackdown on Chinese firms due to human rights concerns and national security interests. Last Friday, Hong Kong-headquartered artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime was also blacklisted by the Treasury for enabling human rights abuses in China. Furthermore, Financial Times reported earlier this week that lawmakers in the US are discussing ways to target China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC). Likewise, in October, US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked China Telcom’s authorisation, debilitating China’s largest telecom network provider in the US.
Also on Thursday, the US Senate passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans imported goods from China’s Xinjiang region unless the companies producing them prove they were made without slave labour.