The Biden administration has included eight Chinese companies, including DJI, the world’s largest commercial drone manufacturer, on the investment blacklist because they are suspected of participating in the surveillance of the Uyghur Muslim minority.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the U.S. Treasury Department will add DJI and other companies to the blacklist of “Chinese military enterprises” on Thursday. American investors are prohibited from holding financial shares in 60 Chinese groups that have been blacklisted.

This measure marks the latest move by US President Joe Biden to punish China. Suppression of Uyghurs And other Muslim minorities in northwestern Xinjiang.

Last week, the face recognition software company SenseTime, put off It plans to conduct an IPO in Hong Kong after the Financial Times Report The United States intends to blacklist the company.

Other Chinese companies that will be sanctioned on Thursday include Megvii, the main competitor of SenseTime last year. Suspension of listing plan After being separately blacklisted by the United States, Sugon Information Industry, a supercomputer manufacturer operating cloud computing services in Xinjiang, was also blacklisted by the United States.

Face recognition software company Yuncong Technology, a network security group Xiamen Meiya Picco, which cooperates with law enforcement agencies, Yitu TechnologyArtificial intelligence company Leon Technology, cloud computing company Leon Technology and cloud monitoring system manufacturer NetPosa Technologies will also join the CMIC blacklist.

DJI and Megvii are not publicly traded, but Sugon is listed in Shanghai, while Leon, NetPosa and Meiya Pico are listed in Shenzhen.

All 8 companies have gone to the Ministry of Commerce”Entity list“This restricts U.S. companies from exporting U.S. technology or products to Chinese groups without government permission.

The White House did not comment, and the Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

DJI declined to comment. But last year, it stated that “it did not do anything to justify being included in the list of entities” It is added Joined the export blacklist of the Department of Commerce at the end of the term of former President Donald Trump.

According to people familiar with the matter, the Ministry of Commerce will also include more than 20 Chinese companies on the entity list on Thursday, including some companies involved in biotechnology. The Ministry of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment.

The sanctions came as the United States maintained a strong stance on China’s policy in Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities were held in detention camps.The White House announced a Diplomatic boycott The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

The Biden administration will also consider tightening regulations on US companies selling technology to China’s largest chip manufacturer SMIC.Trump administration Include SMIC on the list of entities A year ago, but the decision included a clause that critics said created a loophole that some companies exploited.

According to Eric Sayers, Head of Indo-Pacific operations at Beacon Global Strategies, a consulting company Biden moved After reviewing many technical policies of his predecessor, it entered the implementation stage.

Sayers said: “Whether these targeted but important steps are just the beginning of a more radical approach promoted by the White House, or the minimum that can be convened among agencies at present, will be interesting.” “If it is the former, we may be in the future. A few months have seen further restrictions on SMIC and new restrictions on foreign investment.”

Another example of the escalating confrontation between Washington and Beijing over Xinjiang is the unanimous passage of a bill by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday. Prohibit imports from this region Unless the company can prove that the goods are not produced using forced labor.

The House of Representatives and the Senate earlier agreed on a compromise draft of the bill, laying the foundation for the Senate to vote in the upper house of Congress before the year-end holiday adjourns.

The White House welcomed the agreement reached on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Law.

Sophie Richardson, director of the China Department of Human Rights Watch, called on Biden to sign the bill “immediately” after Congress passed it.

“Beijing and companies have long hoped that the world is willing to put profits above human rights-even in the face of crimes against humanity,” Richardson said.

Jewher Ilham, an activist, his father Ilham TohtiThe Uyghur human rights advocate has been imprisoned for life in China on charges of separatism that has been widely criticized. He said that Congress has reached an agreement requiring companies to be “responsible for their complicity in the world’s worst forced labor system.” It is “promising.”

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