The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has designated dozens of Chinese companies, including tech giant Tencent and battery maker CATL, as companies linked to the Chinese military, the department said on Monday.
Since 2021, the DOD has been required by law to compile a list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States, or the Section 1260H list. The annually updated list now includes 134 companies that allegedly support the Chinese military, compared to 73 companies listed a year ago.
Six companies were removed from the list on Monday, including China Marine Information Electronics, Beijing Megvii Technology, China Marine Information Electronics Company Limited, China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, China State Construction Group, China Telecommunications Corporation, and Shenzhen Consys Science & Technology.
The designation alone currently doesn’t carry any direct legal ramifications, but the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024 banned the DOD from procuring goods, services, or technology wholly or partially originating from companies on the Chinese military companies list. Other businesses may also opt to avoid dealing with companies on the list.
Tencent Holdings, which was added on Monday, is the parent company of WeChat, a super app that combines instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment. The company is also a leader in AI, cloud computing, and gaming.
In a statement to Reuters, Tencent said its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.”
CATL called the designation a mistake, saying it “is not engaged in any military-related activities.”
U.S. lawmakers had pushed the Pentagon throughout 2024 to add some of the companies, including CATL, to the list. Ford Motor is building a battery plant in Michigan and plans to license CATL technology to produce low-cost lithium-iron batteries at the facility—a move that has sparked concerns by some lawmakers. Ford did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.
A spokesperson for Quectel, a producer of IoT modules, which was also included in the list, said the company “does not work with the military in any country and will ask the Pentagon to reconsider its designation, which clearly has been made in error.”
In addition, the lawmakers urged the DOD to list six Chinese biotech companies, two of which, Origincell and MGI Group, were added on Monday.
The DOD also included BGI Group, the parent company of MGI and BGI Genomics, which was previously designated as a Chinese military company, and another BGI subsidiary, Forensic Genomics International.
Other designated companies include drone maker Autel Robotics, chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies, state-owned China COSCO Shipping Corporation and its subsidiaries, and subsidiaries of previously designated Aviation Industry Corporation of China, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited, and China Communications Construction Group.
Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the additions showed that it was “reckless” for American firms to conduct business with a growing swath of Chinese corporations.
“The [United States] isn’t just safeguarding a handful of technologies anymore,” he said. “The garden of sensitive technologies is growing, and the fence protecting them is being fortified. Today’s list lays bare that these aren’t just commercial companies. They’re critical enablers of China’s military modernization, directly fueling Beijing’s strategic ambitions.”
