Washington's additions to 'Entity List' opposed

China urged the United States to immediately stop its wrong practices targeted at Chinese enterprises and pledged to take all necessary measures to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.
The ministry commented after the US government added 33 Chinese technology companies, universities and research institutions, such as cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360 and the Harbin Institute of Technology, to its "Entity List" in late May, barring them from accessing US technology exports. As this move took effect on Friday, the ministry stressed in a statement that this is conducive to the interests of neither China nor the US, nor of the entire world.
The US has repeatedly used so-called national security as an excuse to abuse export controls as it uses various measures and national power to attack companies in other countries, causing serious damage to the international economic and trade order and constituting a threat to the security of global industrial and supply chains, according to the statement.
Experts said it will notably raise tension between the world's two largest economies after they have put a great deal of effort into creating favorable conditions for the phase-one trade deal, which could help stabilize bilateral business ties and economic relations.
The US government often has made use of political forces to sever normal business partnerships, and such moves have badly affected global supply chains already suffering from partial fragmentation from the COVID-19 outbreak, said Wang Peng, deputy head of the research institute China Center for Information Industry Development.
Washington has already put dozens of Chinese tech companies on its Entity List. They include telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co and its affiliates, supercomputer manufacturer Sugon, artificial intelligence pioneer iFlytek Co, video surveillance company Hikvision and facial recognition technology startups SenseTime Group and Megvii Technology.
Those Chinese tech majors buy a large number of chips and other components from US companies every year. The more Chinese companies are placed on the Entity List, the more harm it will do to US suppliers, analysts said.
Xiang Ligang, director-general ofthe Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, said it is not news that Washington wants to contain the rise of Chinese tech players.
"But US government restrictions will, instead, expedite Chinese high-tech companies' push to strengthen their own technological innovation as well as research and development capacities," Xiang said.
Eager to maintain normal operations, many Chinese tech companies have already been working hard to diversify their purchasing channels, cultivating domestic suppliers of core technologies and looking for backup plans.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang also said on Friday that forcing Chinese companies to retreat from US stock exchanges will severely harm the interests of US investors.
He spoke after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned US investors against fraudulent accounting practices at China-based companies and said the Nasdaq's recent decision to tighten listing rules for those companies should be "a model" for all exchanges around the world.
Speaking at a regular news conference in Beijing, Geng said that the small number of Chinese companies that have cooked the books do not represent the whole of Chinese companies listed in the US, and the recent remarks and practices of the US regarding Chinese firms are obviously biased.
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