US sanctions 24 Chinese companies over role in South China Sea
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration added 24 Chinese companies on Wednesday (26) to a government list that bans them from purchasing certain sensitive US products, citing their role in helping the Chinese military construct artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea.
The Trump administration has penalized dozens of Chinese companies in previous months by adding them to the so-called entity list over national security concerns related to advanced technology and alleged human rights violations against Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region. But this is the first time that the administration has used the entity list in relation to China’s encroachment in the South China Sea.
The State Department also announced that it would begin imposing visa restrictions on Chinese citizens “responsible for, or complicit in, either the large-scale reclamation, construction, or militarization of disputed outposts in the South China Sea”. Such individuals would be barred from the United States, and their family members may also face visa restrictions, the announcement said.
The move is the latest in a series of actions that have further soured relations between China and the United States. President Donald Trump, who has accused Beijing of not doing enough to prevent the coronavirus from becoming a global pandemic, has increasingly looked to punish China.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration moved to bar the Chinese-owned social media apps TikTok and WeChat from the United States, shut down a Chinese diplomatic mission in Houston, and placed sanctions on Chinese officials and entities over human rights violations, among several other measures. In July, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that China’s claims across much of the South China Sea were “completely unlawful.”
The Chinese government has been rapidly building artificial islands in the disputed waters since 2013, dredging and constructing more than 3,000 acres of new land, including air defence and anti-ship missile features, the Commerce Department said in its announcement.
The named companies include several divisions of China Communications Construction Co., a contractor for many of the ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure projects that China has built around the world.
The list also includes Beijing Huanjia Telecommunication Co., Chongxin Bada Technology Development Co., Shanghai Cable Offshore Engineering Co., Tianjin Broadcasting Equipment Co., and the research institutes of the China Electronics Technology Group Corp. and China Shipbuilding Group.
-New York Times