US blacklists 7 Chinese entities over ‘Destabilizing’ Military Activities – Commerce Dept

Washington: The United States has blacklisted seven Chinese supercomputing entities for allegedly engaging in military modernization efforts that pose a threat to US national security, the Commerce Department said in a press release on Thursday.
“The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to the Entity List for conducting activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States,” the release said. “These entities are involved with building supercomputers used by China’s military actors, its destabilizing military modernization efforts, and/or weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.”
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo noted that supercomputing capabilities have multiple modern military uses including nuclear and hypersonic weapons.
“The Department of Commerce will use the full extent of its authorities to prevent China from leveraging U.S. technologies to support these destabilizing military modernization efforts,” she said in the release.
The blacklisted firms include Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, the National Supercomputing Center Jinan, the National Supercomputing Center Shenzhen, the National Supercomputing Center Wuxi, and the National Supercomputing Center Zhengzhou, according to the release.
Tension in relations between Beijing and the West escalated in late March after the EU, along with Canada, the UK and the US, introduced a series of sanctions against Chinese citizens and organizations over alleged poor human rights records and what they perceive as persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. Beijing responded by imposing retaliatory sanctions. (Sputnik)