On Wednesday, Cotton and Gallagher praised DOD for releasing the list and urging the president to impose economic penalties against the firms.
The White House did not comment on whether it would sanction the companies on the list, but said it saw it as “a useful tool for the U.S. Government, companies, investors, academic institutions, and likeminded partners to conduct due diligence with regard to partnerships with these entities, particularly as the list grows.”
The list will likely add to tensions between the world’s two largest economies, which have been at loggerheads over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic and China’s move to impose security legislation on Hong Kong, among multiple points of friction that have worsened this year.
Last week, China threatened retaliation after President Donald Trump signed legislation calling for sanctions over the repression of China’s Uighurs.
The list “is a start, but woefully inadequate to warn the American people about the state-owned and -directed companies that support the Chinese government and Communist Party’s activities threatening U.S. economic and national security,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who sponsored the Uighur bill, said in a statement.
SPOTLIGHT ON U.S. TIES
The list will also turn a spotlight on U.S. companies’ ties to the Chinese firms as well as their operations in the United States.
In 2012, U.S.-based General Electric Co (GE.N) set up a 50/50 avionics joint venture with AVIC, known as Aviage Systems, to supply equipment for China’s C919 passenger jet.
The Defense Department list also includes China Railway Construction Corp, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC), as well as CRRC, the world’s largest maker of passenger trains, which has clinched contracts in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles by underbidding rivals.
The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Many of the companies listed are already in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators. Both Huawei and Hikvision were added to a Commerce Department blacklist last year, which forces their U.S. suppliers to seek licenses before selling to them.
In April, the U.S. Justice Department and other federal agencies called on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke China Telecom (Americas) Corp’s authorization to provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States. The telecoms regulator rejected a similar request by China Mobile last year that had been pending for years.
