According to a Reuters report on the 23rd, the US Department of Commerce said on the 22nd that besides Huawei, it will add 33 Chinese companies and institutions to the “Entity List”, meaning that these companies will not be able to conduct any commercial transactions with the United States.

In a statement, the US Department of Commerce claimed that a total of 9 companies and institutions were included in the “Entity List” for reasons such as “helping to monitor the Uyghur”, including the Chinese Academy of Forensic Medicine, Aksu Huafu Textile Co., Ltd., CloudWalk Technology Co., Ltd., FiberHome Technology Group and its subsidiary Nanjing FiberHome Star Communications Development Co., Ltd., NetPosa Technology Co., Ltd. and its subsidiaries SenseNets, Shenzhen Intellifusion Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Is Vision Technology Co., Ltd.

In another statement, the U.S. Department of Commerce stated that 24 Chinese companies, government agencies, and business organizations located in mainland China, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands “due to support the procurement of items used by the Chinese military”, and  “National security or foreign policy interests run counter to each other” are included in the list of entities, including the Beijing Computer Science Research Center, Beijing High Voltage Science Research Center, Chengdu Precision Optical Engineering Research Center, CloudMinds (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., Harbin Engineering University, Jingna (Hong Kong) Technology Co., Ltd., K Logistics (China) Co., Ltd., Qihoo 360 Co., Ltd., SkyEye Laser Technology Co., Ltd. and Zhu Jiejin, associate professor of Fudan University.

Many of the companies listed on the entity list are focused on artificial intelligence and facial recognition, and the market in these areas is also a market where U.S. chip companies such as Nvidia and Intel have been investing heavily. Among them, NetPosa Technology Co., Ltd., a company limited by shares, is one of the most famous AI companies in China. Supported by Japan’s SoftBank, CloudMinds Technology is a cloud-based intelligent robot operator that was banned from transferring technology or technical information from its US subsidiary to its Beijing office last year. Qihoo 360, a major cybersecurity company, has gone through the privatization process of listed companies and was delisted from NASDAQ in 2015. The company recently made headlines because it found evidence that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hacker organization used cyber-attack tools to target relevant units in key areas such as China’s aerospace, scientific research institutions, oil industry, large Internet companies, and government agencies carried out 11 years of penetration of cyber attacks.

The US Department of Commerce stated that placing these entities and individuals on the “entity list” would restrict the use of products containing US technology by these companies and organizations without specific approval from the US government.

Reuters pointed out that the recent actions followed the same blueprint that the United States used when trying to limit Huawei’s influence, similar to the United States ’practice in October last year.  The U.S. Department of Commerce listed 8 Chinese companies including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Public Security Department, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau and HikVision on the list of export control entities on October 7 last year.

At that time, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang stated at a regular press conference that this act seriously violated the basic norms of international relations and interfered in China’s internal affairs. He emphasized that the US accusation against China is completely reversal of black and white and nonsense. It can only further expose its sinister intentions that interfere with Xinjiang ’s counter-terrorism efforts and obstruct China’s stable development.

Geng Shuang said that the United States has used the so-called human rights issue as an excuse to include the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Public Security Department, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau and other agencies and eight Chinese companies on the list of export control entities and implement export restrictions. This kind of behavior seriously violates the international basic norms of relations interfere with China’s internal affairs and harm China’s interests. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this.