China said on Thursday it was adding dozens of US companies to its export control list to “protect national security and interests”.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said it will impose measures on 28 US entities and will also ban exports of dual-use goods to the listed companies starting Thursday, it reported the The Global Times, a Chinese daily that is seen as aligned with Beijing, and the government news agency Xinhua. Dual-use items refer to those that can be used for civilian or military purposes.
China also sanctioned 10 defense companies on Thursday for selling military equipment to Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own, adding them to China’s “Unreliable Entity List”, the ministry said, according to AFP.
The moves come as Beijing prepares for President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House and after the Biden administration expanded its restrictions on Chinese companies amid an escalating back-and-forth. During his presidential campaign, Trump also floated the idea of imposing a tariff up to 60% on all Chinese goods.
China last month he said was investigating US microchip maker Nvidia for possible violations of Chinese antitrust laws.
The Chinese action comes less than a week after it placed sanctions on seven companies in response to recently announced US military sales and aid to Taiwan;
Still, Beijing’s sanctions against U.S. defense companies tend to have a muted effect, given that U.S. military companies do not sell weapons or related goods to China. Sweet-for-love trade measures could also be limited, some analysts think.
“Changes in immigration, trade and fiscal policy under the second Trump administration are likely to be significant but fall short of some of the more dramatic proposals,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent report. “We expect tariffs on imports from China and cars, but not universal tariffs, which would carry economic and political risks that we think the White House would prefer to avoid.”
contributed to this report.
