China's crimes against humanity

U.S. Blacklists 28 Chinese Entities Over Abuses in East Turkestan

By Ana Swanson and Paul Mozur

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Monday that it had added 28 Chinese organizations to a United States blacklist over concerns about their role in human rights violations, effectively blocking those entities from buying American products.
The organizations have been implicated in China’s campaign targeting Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in the colony of East Turkestan, according to a Commerce Department filing.
Among the entities being placed on the list are Hikvision and Dahua Technology, two of the world’s largest manufacturers of video surveillance products. 

It also hits China’s well-funded, newly emerging class of artificial-intelligence start-ups. 

Together, the companies’ products are central to China’s ambitions to be the top global exporter of surveillance technology.
The list also includes companies that specialize in artificial intelligence, voice recognition and data as well as provincial and local security bureaus that have helped construct what amounts to a police state in East Turkestan. 

These entities have been involved “in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention and high-technology surveillance,” the filing said.
The move was announced just days before high-level Chinese and American officials meet in Washington to try to resolve a trade war that has begun mounting pain on China.
The blacklist’s impact on the companies is likely to be mixed.
In many cases, they could find ways to replace American components and have likely already stockpiled key parts, limiting the short-term impact.
Over the longer term, it could hamper their access to United States and European markets, as well as damage recruitment efforts. 

American customers, universities and others will likely look askance at striking up relations with Chinese companies on the blacklist.
A Commerce Department spokesman said Monday that the action was not related to those talks. 

But the decision is likely to rankle the Chinese government, which has helped support some of these companies as they have developed into cutting-edge technology firms.
“The U.S. government and Department of Commerce cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
Hikvision said in a statement that it strongly opposed the decision and had been trying to address the administration’s concerns for the past year. 

The punishment will “hurt Hikvision’s U.S. business partners,” the company said.
China has faced growing condemnation from human rights groups in recent months for its detention of up to one million ethnic Uighurs and other minority Muslims in large internment camps in East Turkestan.
Beijing has constructed an advanced surveillance system, in what it describes as an effort to fight Islamic extremism among the Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in East Turkestan. 

But Uighurs and others around the world say Chinese officials are trying to suppress their culture and religion.

Human Rights Watch has said the violations are of a “scope and scale not seen in China since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution,” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called China’s treatment of the Uighurs the “stain of the century.”
Yet administration officials have wavered on how much to keep human rights and economic concerns separate in their negotiations with China. 

Many officials emphasize that the topics are separate, but the administration has shelved several proposals that would have shined light on China’s abuses over concerns that a tough stance could upset trade talks. 

And President Trump himself has often linked national security and other concerns to trade talks.
On Monday, President Trump said “bad” action in Hong Kong, the site of violent protests, would hurt progress on trade and urged China to find a “humane solution.”
“I think they’re coming to make a deal,” he said of the Chinese. 

“It’s got to be a fair deal.”
The Trump administration has steadily ratcheted up pressure on China through tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese products and other restrictions on Chinese investment in the United States. The administration has also begun looking to restrict exports to China.
This year, the administration placed Huawei, the Chinese telecom equipment giant, on the blacklist, saying it posed national security concerns. 

It added five Chinese entities to the list in June, also citing national security.
American companies can still apply for licenses to supply products to organizations that have been placed on the Commerce Department entity list, but the government may deny the applications.
The companies on the list help illustrate the breadth and development of China’s surveillance industry, which increasingly uses predictive technology to track its own citizens, or spot potential protests or crimes as they occur.
The new additions include several artificial intelligence start-ups: Megvii, SenseTime and Yitu Technologies. 

They also include iFlytek, which makes voice recognition software; Xiamen Meiya Pico Information Company, a data forensics company; and Yixin Science and Technology Company, which makes nanotechnology.
The listed government entities include East Turkestan’s public security bureau and 19 subordinate bureaus and institutes.
Several of the firms have grown into global operations while servicing an extensive market in China. Hikvision said it had more than 34,000 employees and dozens of divisions worldwide, and it has supplied products to the Beijing Olympics, the World Cup in Brazil and Linate Airport in Milan. Dahua Technologies has more than 16,000 employees, according to its website, with divisions in North America, Europe and Latin America.
The companies run the gamut in terms of capabilities and focus. 

Some are specialists in facial-recognition systems, voice-recognition software, surveillance cameras and phone tracking systems that are sold largely to China’s security forces. 

Others have ambitions of building systems that can filter social media content and products that could help doctors reach cancer diagnoses.
As a result, the impact of the bans will be varied. 

For the surveillance camera maker Hikvision, which makes a significant portion of the world’s security cameras, the impact could be significant. 

A block could have a roughly 10 percent impact on revenue, technology research firm Sanford Bernstein said in a Monday note. 

While the company would have to replace some American-made chips placed in its high-end cameras, most of the impact would come on the back-end servers that help analyze footage as part of its security systems.
The impact could be larger in terms of broader sales ambitions. 

Hikvision has worked to court the American market, including a number of government-connected customers.
For those focused on artificial-intelligence software, like Yitu and Megvii, the direct hit could be small. 

Nonetheless, the blacklist could impact them in other ways. 

The artificial intelligence start-ups on the list have partnerships with American software firms, connections to American universities and have been active in trying to hire foreign talent. 

In all those cases, the blocks will likely hamper their efforts.