The USA never takes its enemies lightly, and in the case of China, it has made no exceptions. The Trump administration, perhaps, in its last leg too is not going easy on Beijing, and the USA has on Thursday added China’s top chipmaker, SMIC, and its oil giant CNOOC to the list of blacklisted companies which are as per US intelligence reports are Chinese military companies. This has ended the really short time span when Xi Jinping was taking a breath of fresh air, thinking that Trump could not do anything more to hurt belligerent China. This has made Xi Jinping royally mad and has drawn condemnation from Beijing just months before the possible start of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The United States Department of Defense designated a total of four companies as owned or controlled by the Chinese military, including China Construction Technology Co Ltd and China International Engineering Consulting Corp. These additions to the discussed list takes the total to 35, that is, the total Chinese companies which have been blacklisted and will find it nearly impossible to do business and technology theft as usual with or within the USA.
While the list did not initially trigger any penalties, a recent executive order, seen in most likelihood a nudge by President Donald Trump, will prevent U.S. investors from buying the firms’ securities from late next year. This means, earlier the companies may have been able to trade using third party countries as the transaction grounds and utilizing their sovereignty as a cloak behind which the activities could go as usual. But the recent addition and the executive order will make USA and its companies an impregnable fortress for the Chinese to surmount.
Reacting to it, Hua Chunying, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, “The U.S. should stop abusing national power and national security concepts to suppress foreign companies.” This statement sounds all the more ironical because China itself is currently using all its state machinery to make sure that Australia bleeds big time and to make it an example for other countries. China has itself broken all the WTO norms and precedence to make Australian economy a hell and is condemning the USA when it has sanctioned and blacklisted companies, being within the WTO limits.
Read more: China just shot itself in the foot by banning Australian coal.
The Chinese thought that the Huawei episode will be the last and by the time Joe Biden comes to office all will be hunky dory, and Beijing would again go back to business as usual. But, President Donald Trump is making sure that no open ended positions for Biden dismantle Trump’s legacy and in the process he has been relentlessly punching China left and right.
The latest additions to the already existent list of Chinese companies which are banned due to their affiliations with the Chinese PLA and other engagements with Chinese Communist Party, shows that the US is in no mood to let the paper dragon further its plan to dominate the world order. The blacklisting of SMIC and CNOOC means that the stranglehold of the USA will tighten on the Chinese businesses and going ahead it will not be the business as usual, but the business will be coupled with long lasting sanctions as well as containment of China on all levels.