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.

East Turkestan Executioner

President Trump Could Blacklist China’s Hikvision, a Surveillance Firm
By Ana Swanson and Edward Wong

A worker installing Hikvision surveillance cameras in a park in Beijing in February.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering limits to a Chinese video surveillance giant’s ability to buy American technology, people familiar with the matter said, the latest attempt to counter Beijing’s global economic ambitions.
The move would effectively place the company, Hikvision, on a United States blacklist.

It also would mark the first time the Trump administration punished a Chinese company for its role in the surveillance and mass detention of Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority.
The move is also likely to inflame the tensions that have escalated in President Trump’s renewed trade war with Chinese leaders. 

The president, in the span of two weeks, has raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, threatened to tax all imports and taken steps to cripple the Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei. China has promised to retaliate against American industries.
Hikvision is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of video surveillance products and is central to China’s ambitions to be the top global exporter of surveillance systems. 

The Commerce Department may require that American companies obtain government approval to supply components to Hikvision, limiting the company’s access to technology that helps power its equipment.
Administration officials could make a final decision in the coming weeks.
The combination of more traditional surveillance equipment with new technologies, like artificial intelligence, speech monitoring and genetic testing, is helping make monitoring networks increasingly effective — and intrusive. 

Hikvision says its products enable their clients to track people around the country by their facial features, body characteristics or gait, or to monitor activity considered unusual by officials, such as people suddenly running or crowds gathering.
China poses an economic, technological and geopolitical threat that cannot be left unchecked. 

The United States has targeted Chinese technology companies like Huawei that poses a national security threat given deep ties between the Chinese government and industry and laws that could require Chinese firms to hand over information if asked.
Adding to those concerns are the global human rights implications of China’s extensive surveillance industry, which it increasingly uses to keep tabs on its own citizens. 

The Chinese have used surveillance technology, including facial recognition systems and closed-circuit television cameras, to target the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, who have accused the Chinese government of discriminating against their culture and religion.
China has constructed a police state in the country’s northwest colony of East Turkestan, which is Uighurs' homeland. 

That includes extensive surveillance powered by companies like Hikvision and barbed wire-ringed internment compounds that hold 800,000 to as many as three million Muslims.
China has begun exporting this technology to nations that seek closer surveillance of their citizens, including Ecuador, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Since last year, administration officials have debated what to do about China’s attempts to clamp down on the cultural and religious practices of the Uighurs. 

But they have refrained from taking action, in part because some American officials worried a move would derail attempts to win a trade deal with China.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News on May 2 that the administration was concerned “that the Chinese are working to put their systems in networks all across the world so they can steal your information and my information.” 

He mentioned the Muslim internment camps, adding, “This is stuff that is reminiscent of the 1930s that present a real challenge to the United States, and this administration is prepared to take this on.”
Since trade talks with Beijing nearly crumbled early this month, the administration has quickly ramped up economic pressure on China. 

It is moving ahead with plans to tax an additional $300 billion in products, and announced a sweeping executive order cutting off Huawei from purchasing the American software and semiconductors it needs to make its products. 

While American companies can try to obtain a license to continue doing business with Huawei, firms like Google are making plans to curtail the products and services that they supply.
The administration is also attempting to prosecute a top Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, who faces criminal charges in the United States and is under house arrest in Canada, where she awaits a court decision on extradition.

The Trump administration is considering adding Hikvision to an “entity list” that could limit its ability to buy American technology.

The measure against Hikvision would operate similarly to Huawei’s license requirement.
The Commerce Department would place it on an “entity list,” which requires designated foreign companies and American companies to get United States government approval before they do business with one another.
“Taking this step would be a tangible signal to both U.S. and foreign companies that the U.S. government is looking carefully at what is happening in East Turkestan and is willing to take action in response,” said Jessica Batke, a former State Department official who has done research in Xinjiang and testified before Congress on the issue.
“At the same time, however, the ongoing trade war perhaps undercuts the perception that this is coming from a place of purely human rights concerns.”
The Commerce Department and the White House declined to comment.
Hikvision is little known in the United States, but the company supplies large parts of China’s extensive surveillance system. 
The company’s products include traffic cameras, thermal cameras and unmanned aerial vehicles, and they now allow Chinese security agencies to monitor railway stations, roads and other sites.
It is not immediately clear what effect a United States ban would have on Hikvision’s business.
The company appears to source just a small portion of its components from the United States, and any such ban could speed its efforts to switch to Chinese suppliers.
But Hikvision does have a growing international presence, and its executives have warned in the past about the potential for rising anti-China sentiment in the United States to affect its operations.
The company says it has more than 34,000 global employees and dozens of divisions worldwide, and it has supplied products to the Beijing Olympics, the Brazilian World Cup and the Linate Airport in Milan.
It has tried to expand into North America in recent years, employing hundreds of workers in the United States and Canada, setting up offices in California and building a North American research and development team headquartered in Montreal.
Members of Congress from both parties have called on the administration to impose sanctions on companies involved in aiding China’s persecution of Muslims, including Hikvision. 
In an August 2018 letter, legislators also urged the Commerce Department to strengthen its controls over technology exported to these companies, and called on the government to increase disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies that might be complicit in human rights abuses.
Hikvision and Dahua, another company cited by lawmakers, are both listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange.
MSCI, one of the largest index providers in the United States, added Hikvision to its benchmark emerging markets index last year.
UBS and J. P. Morgan are among the company’s top 10 shareholders, according to Hikvision.
Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, said in an interview that the House Intelligence Committee, which he leads, could scrutinize more closely American companies that are investing in or partnering with Chinese firms that are building up the Chinese surveillance state.
Congress and the administration have responded with other measures that may clamp down on Hikvision’s business.
Congress included a provision in its 2019 military spending authorization bill that banned federal agencies from using Chinese video surveillance products made by Hikvision or Dahua.
The Trump administration is also considering imposing sanctions on specific Chinese officials known to play critical roles in the surveillance and detention system in East Turkestan.
These sanctions would be imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act.
The highest-ranking official being considered for this type of targeted sanction is Chen Quanguo, a member of the party’s Politburo and party chief of East Turkestan since August 2016.
The State Department and White House National Security Council support imposing the sanctions, but officials at the Treasury Department have pushed back, citing a desire not to upset the trade talks, even though those have bogged down.
Pro-China Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has advocated maintaining strong business ties with China.
The Commerce Department is also working on new restrictions on the types of potentially sensitive American technology that can be exported to foreign businesses, which are likely to touch on artificial intelligence and 5G abilities.