- The Pentagon has flagged 188 firms it calls “Chinese military companies.”
- BYD has vehemently denied any association with the Chinese military.
- China’s embassy has described the national security list as “discriminatory.”
Less than a month after President Donald Trump sat down with Xi Jinping at a two-day summit in Beijing, the Pentagon has dropped BYD and Nio onto its list of companies it considers tied to the Chinese military. Being named doesn’t trigger immediate sanctions, but it can scare off American firms from doing business with the listed companies and complicate their ability to operate stateside.
This is not the first time the US government has flagged companies it believes are tied to the Chinese military. The annually updated Section 1260H list already named tech giant Tencent in a prior round, and this latest expansion adds BYD and Nio, along with biotech firm WuXi AppTec, e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba, internet search provider Baidu, and humanoid robot maker Unitree, which is partnering with Nvidia on new robots.
In total, the US flagged 188 firms it designates as “Chinese military companies,” labeling them a national security risk. Several of these companies already operate in the US, including BYD. While the EV leader doesn’t sell its passenger cars in America, it does sell electric buses locally and builds them in California.
Read: BYD Made A Critic Pay $294,000 For Questioning Its Batteries On Camera
Speaking to the BBC, Nanyang Technological University police analyst Stefanie Kam noted that companies have likely been flagged for participating in state programs, rather than for clear evidence of their association with the Chinese military. The Pentagon added that companies like BYD were included because they have affiliations with the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
China Hits Back
BYD vehemently denied being associated with China’s military and added that being included in the list harms “its development achievements in the United States. Nio noted that it will not be affected by its inclusion on the list, as it doesn’t do business in the US.
The Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, said the list is “discriminatory” and shows it’s “overstretching” the concept of national security.
“Chinese companies that do business overseas have been strictly observing laws and regulations of their host countries,” the embassy told Al Jazeera. “The US should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies.”
