Beijing Sanctions US Defense Companies Amid Fallout From Chinese Spy Balloon

A U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft is parked inside a hangar during the inaugural Trilateral Exercise between the U.S. Air Force, United Kingdom's Royal Air Force, and the French Air Force at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia, on Dec. 15, 2015. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Communist China is sanctioning two U.S. defense companies for arms sales to Taiwan amid the growing fallout over the downing of a Chinese spy balloon in U.S. airspace.

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, the two largest U.S. military manufacturers, will be added to the regime’s sanctions list, according to a Feb. 16 statement by China’s Ministry of Commerce. The sanctions follow a day after Beijing threatened “countermeasures” against the United States for its shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that illegally incurred into U.S. airspace.

The companies will be banned from importing, exporting, and investing in China and will be subject to Chinese fines equal to twice the amount of their arms sales to Taiwan going back to 2020.

It isn’t currently clear if Beijing has any mechanisms in place to enforce the fines, and the sanctions are unlikely to have any tangible effect as U.S. defense companies are barred from military sales to China.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) previously sanctioned both companies for arms sales to Taiwan, although it’s unclear whether the move affected other companies.

Beijing falsely claims that Taiwan is a breakaway province of China. However, Taiwan has never been controlled by the CCP, and its own democratic government is a continuation of that which the CCP sought to overthrow during the Chinese Civil War.

The United States formally recognizes but doesn’t endorse the CCP’s position and maintains legal obligations to provide Taiwan with weapons for its self-defense.

The effort to sanction the companies also follows U.S. sanctions against six companies linked to China’s military that are believed to be involved in China’s spy balloon program. The CCP didn’t comment on the issue in its own sanctions, however, simply citing national security as the purpose of the sanctions.

In a statement issued on Feb. 10, the Commerce Department identified five companies and a research institute involved in efforts to support “aerospace programs, including airships and balloons and related materials and components” for the CCP’s military wing.

“The Commerce Department will not hesitate to continue to use the Entity List and our other regulatory and enforcement tools to protect U.S. national security and sovereignty,” Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves said at the time.

Lockheed and Raytheon officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.