Beijing stirs as US slaps more sanctions on Chinese businesses

Chinese security technology firm DJI and dozens of Chinese companies have been added to the growing US blacklist of Chinese companies it claims are violating human rights. DJI has been accused of creating facial recognition and biometric technology which the US says is being used to identify and persecute the Uighur minority in China.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said China is choosing to use biotechnologies "to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups." The US would not condone use of American technology in human rights abuses she said in a statement to the press.

Investment and export bans were also extended to 12 Chinese research institutes citing development of suspicious "brain control technology" although the statement from the Commerce Department did not elaborate any further. This includes the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences which will now have restricted access to US exports.

HMN International, formerly Huawei Marine, Jiangsu Hengtong Marine Cable Systems, Jiangsu Hengtong OpticElectric, Shanghai Aoshi Control Technology Co, Ltd, and Zhongtian Technology Submarine Cable have been added to the list over U.S. allegations of acquiring, or attempting to acquire, technology from the United States to help modernize the People's Liberation Army.

In addition to this, the USA has taken steps to ban export of materials produced by labour in the Xinjiang province where the alleged widespread abuse of Uighurs is taking place and where members of the international community and aid groups have specified the presence of forced labour camps employing over a million people, mostly Muslim minorities.

Beijing has protested the move as an unwarranted suppression of free trade via its embassy in Washington and said it would take "all essential measures" to uphold the interests of Chinese companies and research institutions.

"China's development of biotechnology has always been for the well-being of mankind. The relevant claims of the U.S. side are totally groundless," embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said in an email to Reuters.