US adds another 33 Chinese entities to the `banned’ list

US Department of Commerce on Friday announced the addition of two dozen Chinese companies with ties to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Military Activities to the list of banned entities. The Commerce Department also added nine other Chinese companies to the Entity List for human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced it will add 24 governmental and commercial organisations to the Entity List for engaging in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. The entities, based in China, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands, represent a significant risk of supporting procurement of items for military end-use in China, Commerce stated in a release.

“The new additions to the Entity List demonstrate our commitment to preventing the use of U.S. commodities and technologies in activities that undermine our interests,” said secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross.   

This action will prohibit the export, re-export, or in-country transfer of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to these entities without Department of Commerce authorisation.

The EAR imposes additional licence requirements on, and limits the availability of most licence exceptions for, exports, re-exports, and transfers (in-country) to listed entities.

BIS also announced the impending addition of the China’s ministry of public security’s Institute of Forensic Science and eight Chinese companies to the Entity List, which will result in these parties facing new restrictions on access to US technology. These nine parties are complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Commerce stated in another release. 

This action will supplement BIS’s first tranche of Entity List designations in October 2019 involving 28 parties engaged in the XUAR repression campaign in Xinjiang.

The Entity List additions restrict the export of US items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to persons or organisations reasonably believed to be involved, or to pose a significant risk of being of becoming involved, in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. The EAR imposes additional license requirements on, and limits the availability of most license exceptions for, exports, re-exports, and transfers (in-country) to listed entities.

The listing will identify China’s ministry of public security’s Institute of Forensic Science and Aksu Huafu Textiles Co for engaging in human rights violations and abuses in the XUAR. An additional seven commercial entities will be to the list for enabling China’s high-technology surveillance in the XUAR. 

These include CloudWalk Technology, FiberHome Technologies Group and the subsidiary Nanjing FiberHome Starrysky Communication Development, NetPosa and the subsidiary SenseNets, Intellifusion and IS’Vision.