US blacklists four more Chinese firms for allegedly being controlled by country's military

Trump administration on Thursday listed four more Chinese companies operating in United States as entities being controlled by People's Liberation Army (PLA). companies included in list are China Construction Techlogy Co. Ltd. (CCTC) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC). SMIC was also sanctioned by US in September this year as country declared it a military-end user and made it mandatory for American companies to obtain a license in order to deal with it. 

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" Department is determined to highlight and counter People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Military-Civil Fusion development strategy, which supports modernization goals of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by ensuring its access to advanced techlogies and expertise acquired and developed by even those PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities," US Department of Defence said in a statement.

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China International Engineering Consulting Corp. (CIECC) and China National Offshore Oil Corp. (COC) are or two companies included in blacklist. So far, Department of Defence has blacklisted over 30 Chinese companies and has said that it will continue to update list with additional entities. 

Huawei connection

Meanwhile, blacklisting of SMIC as a Chinese military-controlled company has come as ar blow to Huawei as it is one of major chip suppliers of telecom giant. Trump administration sees Huawei as an arm of Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state. US government in past has imposed various sanctions on company in order to prevent it from doing business in country. 

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US has been constantly lobbying in ally nations to prevent Huawei from setting up 5G network bases in ir countries, including United Kingdom and European Union. Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei, who was formerly employed by People's Liberation Army (PLA) and is still considered close to military by US. 

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