The Trump administration on Thursday (Jan. 14) issued several measures against China and Chinese companies in a single day, imposing sanctions on officials and companies involved in island reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea, “blacklisting” nine Chinese companies, including Xiaomi, for having ties to the Chinese military and restricting information and communications technology and services-related transactions with China. The sanctions were imposed on nine Chinese companies, including Xiaomi, that are “blacklisted” for their ties to China’s military and restricted some transactions with China related to information and communications technology and services. With less than a week before President Trump leaves office, why is the Trump administration taking another intense swipe at China at this time?
The State Department on Thursday announced additional actions on the South China Sea, including visa restrictions on executives of Chinese state-owned enterprises and officials of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Navy with ties to the maritime dispute. Immediate family members of these executives and officials may also be subject to these visa restrictions.
In a statement, Secretary of State Pompeo said the United States stands with Southeast Asian claimants seeking to defend their sovereignty and interests in accordance with international law and will continue to act until Beijing stops its coercive behavior in the South China Sea. Pompeo announced last July that the U.S. considers most of Beijing’s claims to interests in the South China Sea to be “illegitimate.
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Chinese oil giant China National Offshore Oil Corp. to its list of entities that it says help China intimidate its neighbors in the South China Sea. In a statement, Commerce Secretary Ross said, “CNOOC is bullying and allowing the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to intimidate its neighbors and the Chinese military to continue to benefit from the government’s civil-military integration policy out of malice.”
A senior State Department official said Thursday at a joint background briefing with the Commerce Department, “These initiatives are part of a broader U.S. effort to prevent Chinese citizens, state-owned enterprises and institutions from using U.S. goods and technology for malicious and illicit purposes.”
The Commerce Department also announced the same day that it was adding Beijing Skyrizon Aviation Industry Investment Co. (Skyrizon) to its list of military end users, citing the company’s “ability to develop, produce or maintain military items, such as military aircraft engines.” The Commerce Department published its first list of military end-users last December. Entities included on both the Entity List and the Military End-User List are subject to U.S. export control measures.
In addition, the Commerce Department made two other announcements involving China. One is the publication of an interim final rule aimed at securing the ICT and services supply chain that identifies China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and the Maduro regime in Venezuela as foreign adversaries and prohibits certain transactions in ICT and services with those countries.
A senior Commerce Department official said at a background briefing Thursday that transactional activities such as investment mergers, acquisitions, imports, transfers and installations of related hardware software and services require a license from the Commerce Department, and that details of the new rules will be published in the Federal Register Friday or early next week and will take effect 60 days after public notice. The official said projects that have already been subject to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review process will not be subject to duplicative review (double jeopardy), and the new rules do not look back on past transactions.
Another announcement from the Commerce Department was the implementation of new export controls to prevent U.S. technology from falling into the hands of foreign intelligence agencies, including China and Russia, to help them conduct espionage and intelligence-gathering activities; the new measures also require any individual providing support to foreign military intelligence agencies and weapons of mass destruction programs to apply for a license as well.
On the other hand, the U.S. Department of Defense on Thursday “blacklisted” nine more Chinese companies as having ties to the Chinese military. The latest companies on the list include Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, cell phone maker Xiaomi Corp. and SMIC Semiconductor Equipment Corp. These companies will be subject to a new investment ban.
A day earlier, President Trump signed an executive order reinforcing a ban on U.S. companies and individuals investing in Chinese companies listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having ties to the Chinese military. The investment ban previously only required U.S. investors to stop buying stock in those companies by Nov. 11 of this year, but now requires complete divestiture. According to several media reports, China’s three largest technology giant companies, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, were originally included in the list and have since been removed.
Gordon Chang, a current affairs commentator and China analyst, said, “It’s better that these sanctions were implemented earlier, but better late than never.”
The policies come less than a week before the Trump administration leaves office and President-elect Joe Biden takes over, and many will depend on the new administration to implement them, especially the new Commerce Department rules on the ICT supply chain that will not take effect until 60 days from now.
The U.S. still has a lot to do to protect itself, and these measures to sanction the Chinese Communist Party are beneficial, and if the Biden administration does not implement them, they will have to explain themselves,” Zhang said. What the Trump administration is doing now is pushing the Biden team to focus and implement,” he said. If they don’t implement it and they want to repeal it, they may pay a political price.”
Timothy Heath, a researcher on international defense issues at the think tank RAND Corporation, believes the Trump administration’s intensive rollout of actions against China as it leaves office may be motivated in part by domestic political objectives. He said the Biden administration may choose to relax some of its policies, but he also believes that the Biden administration “relaxing any of these measures could expose Biden to criticism from Republican competitors who would say Biden is ‘soft’ on issues such as China, Cuba and Iran. “
The Trump administration continues its tough stance against the Communist regime ahead of its upcoming departure from office. These latest actions on Thursday follow the announcement of the lifting of self-imposed restrictions on high-level diplomacy between the United States and Taiwan. White House National Security Adviser John O’Brien also previously issued a statement saying the U.S. was studying further action in response to Beijing’s encroachment on the rule of law in Hong Kong and the new crown.
Beijing has accused Washington of abusing its national power to suppress Chinese companies under the pretext of national security. China’s official media Global Times called Pompeo’s action “the last madness”.
Asked what he expects to accomplish with these “blitzkrieg” actions, Secretary Pompeo, speaking with Voice of America director Riley after a speech on Voice of America this week, said the actions were not rushed, but were considered efforts that are an important part of a strategy to protect and maintain the freedom of the American people in the face of the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party.
He said, “The Chinese Communist Party has clear intentions of hegemonic domination, and we have an obligation and a responsibility to the American people and, frankly, to freedom-loving people around the world to make sure that that is not the world in which our children and grandchildren will live.”
Recent Comments