The penalties over China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities prohibit Americans from selling equipment or other goods to the firms
China on Sunday said it will take “necessary measures” to respond to the US
blacklisting of Chinese companies over their alleged role in abuses of Uyghur
people and other Muslim ethnic minorities.
The Commerce
Ministry said the US move constituted an “unreasonable suppression of Chinese
enterprises and a serious breach of international economic and trade rules.” China
will “take necessary measures to firmly safeguard Chinese companies' legitimate
rights and interests,” the ministry's statement said.
No details were
given, but China has denied allegations of arbitrary detention and forced
labour in the far western region of Xinjiang and increasingly responded to
sanctions against companies and officials with its own bans on visas and
financial links.
The US Commerce
Department said in a statement on Friday that the electronics and technology
firms and other businesses helped enable “Beijing's campaign of repression,
mass detention and high-technology surveillance” against Muslim minorities in
Xinjiang.
The penalties
prohibit Americans from selling equipment or other goods to the firms. The
United States has stepped up financial and trade penalties over China's
treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, along with its crackdown on
democracy in the semi-autonomous city of Hong
Kong.
The Chinese
government since 2017 has detained a million or more people in Xinjiang. The US
Commerce Department said 14 firms were added to its Entity List over their
dealings in Xinjiang, and another five for aiding China’s armed forces.
In 2019, the Commerce
Department under then-president Donald Trump targeted 20 Chinese public
security bureaus and eight companies including video surveillance firm
Hikvision , as well as leaders in facial recognition technology SenseTime Group
Ltd and Megvii Technology.
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