Making yet another move in the trade war that the US is waging against China, the US Department of Commerce blacklisted five more Chinese companies which were deemed to be a threat to national security. No US-based companies are allowed to conduct business with these Chinese tech firms anymore.
While the US decision to blacklist Chinese tech giant Huawei has overshadowed everything else, the US has constantly been hitting Chinese companies with new sanctions. These 5 latest companies to be banned by the US are in the supercomputing and microprocessing businesses.
The companies are named as Hygon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit, Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology, Sugon, and Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology. According to the Department of Commerce, the business and actions carried out by these companies are ‘contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.’ and hence US companies are no longer allowed to associate with them.
The Department of Commerce also stated that Hygon had admitted to its manufactured systems having a number of ‘military end uses’ and it was cited as a reason for the ban placed on the company. Hygon has a number of business contracts with some high-profile chip manufacturers such as AMD and they are still evaluating the damage that will be caused by this latest development. This also shows that Chinese companies are not the only ones getting harmed by the trade embargoes.
These companies are the latest ones to join Huawei on the Entity List prepared by the Department of Commerce. While the global effect of these bans may not be as huge as that of Huawei, it still has major implications for the tech world and indicates that more Chinese companies could get targeted by the US government. The ‘Tech Cold War’, as it has been dubbed by the internet, is real and is not going away any time soon.