Dusseldorf As of Thursday, the US government plans to put eight Chinese companies on the US Treasury’s investment blacklist. That comes from a report of the “Financial Times”. The companies mentioned include several companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), which represent a strategically important pillar in the new digital economy for Beijing.
The reason for the sanctions: The alleged participation of the companies in the state surveillance and repression of the Uyghur Muslim minority. The surveillance technologies used in Xinjiang are largely based on AI – and thus on an area in which the start-ups from China have become global leaders.
The drone manufacturer DJI is the world market leader in the development and manufacture of aerial drones and thus the most well-known company of the above-mentioned Chinese companies. The US government accuses the drone company of violating human rights by using drones for surveillance.
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In 2016, a spokesman for DJI officially admitted that he wanted to grant the Chinese government access to the data from the film recordings. In 2017, the American military finally banned the use of DJI drones.
2. Megvii
The Beijing-based technology company produces AI technology – with a special focus on facial recognition, machine vision and deep learning. The company’s core product, “Face ++”, is used, among other things, by the Chinese police to monitor and fight crime.
After it became known in November that Megvii was on the US Department of Commerce’s embargo list, the “Entity List”, the company canceled the planned IPO.
3. Cloudwalk Technology
The company develops algorithms for face recognition. Cloudwalk Technology is also accused of being involved in monitoring the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The US Department of Commerce therefore included Cloudwalk Technology in its “Entity List” in May 2020.
4. Dawning Information Industry
The company’s main business areas include research, development and manufacture of high-performance computers and storage devices. The group is also active in the field of information technology.
According to the US Department of Defense, the Dawning Information Industry has ties to the People’s Liberation Army, the armed forces of China. The company emerged from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has been on the “Entity List” since 2019.
5. Leon Technology
Leon Technology mainly offers services in the field of cloud computing. The main business areas of the company include the sale and operation of security systems and communication network technology. The company mainly operates in the Xinjiang Province of China.
6. NetPosa Technologies
The group is a manufacturer of cloud-based surveillance systems and is mainly dedicated to research and development as well as the manufacture and sale of products for video surveillance platforms.
The company’s main products include platforms for network video surveillance, network hard drive video recorders as well as headend devices and information systems for rail traffic. NetPosa Technologies products are used in the public safety industry.
7. Xiamen Meiya Pico
The cybersecurity company primarily operates in the digital data forensics industry. The company’s products include forensics products, large data informatics platforms, network room search products, and video analytics and law enforcement equipment.
The company already attracted public attention in 2019 when it was placed on the embargo list of the US Department of Commerce under the then administration of Donald Trump.
8. Yitu Technology
Along with Cloudwalk Technology, Sensetime and Megvii, the Shanghai-based company is a unicorn in the field of computer vision and security surveillance.
The AI start-up Sensetime was only blacklisted by the US government last Friday. The reason: The company is part of the “military-industrial complex” in China. Because of the sanctions, the company, like Megvii, postponed its IPO.
On the US Department of Commerce’s embargo list
Reports of mass internment of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in re-education camps in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, as well as forced labor and other violations of human rights, had attracted increasing international attention in recent years.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government accuses the Uighur groups of extremism and describes their actions in Xinjiang as the fight against terrorism and ethnic separatism.
An independent body, the “Uyghur Tribunal” based in London, however, had only accused China of genocide against the Uyghurs last Thursday. Measures such as sterilization and birth control are aimed at “wiping out a significant part of the Uyghurs,” the committee said.
Since the eight corporations concerned are already on the embargo list of the US Department of Commerce, US companies are only allowed to do business with the companies with special permission from the US government. The Bureau of Industry and Security only added 27 companies to the list at the end of November.
More: The regulators’ blacklist: The EU wants to ban these practices for tech companies