Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD Added to Pentagon Military Blacklist

The United States government has issued an update to the list of Chinese companies assessed to be contributing to Beijing’s military strength on Monday local time. Notable names included in this list are e-commerce giant Alibaba, search engine Baidu, and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD.

The US Department of Defense (Pentagon) announced this designation only weeks after President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. The bilateral meeting was intended by both parties to maintain stability in relations between the two nations, with Trump also having invited Xi for a return visit to Washington this coming September.

However, the Pentagon’s latest release has the potential to reignite tensions between the world’s two largest economies. This action follows several months after the Pentagon released an initial version of the list.

The latest list is largely similar to the version published in February. Nevertheless, two memory chip manufacturers have been re-added to the blacklist after previously being removed: ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies.

“This latest list of Chinese military companies serves as a warning to American businesses, all levels of government, and the American people,” said Representative John Moolenaar, Chairman of the US House Select Committee on the CCP, a Republican. Moolenaar urged US companies in a statement to “stop doing business with these threats to our national security” or risk “enabling the rise of the Chinese military.”

The targeted companies also include several Chinese technology giants operating in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, the latter of which was already designated in a previous list. Alongside the tech giants, other companies added include the pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec and the humanoid robot startup Unitree.

While the decision to designate these companies has minimal direct legal impact on most listed firms, the Pentagon’s move is viewed as an early signal that could precede more severe punitive actions or sanctions in the future.