Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a
written statement that the U.S. government “will
not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic
minorities within China”.
The blacklisted companies include Hikvision and
Dahua, both of which are global providers of
video surveillance technology.
Hikvision said in a statement that it respects
human rights and strongly opposes the
Trump administration’s decision. The company
said it has spent a year trying to “clarify
misunderstandings about the company and
address their concerns,” and that this will hurt its
U.S. business partners.
Prominent Chinese AI firms such as Sense
Time, Megvii and iFlytek are also on the list.
Sense Time and Megvii are known for the
development of computer vision technology
that underpins facial recognition products, while
iFlytek is known for its voice recognition and
translation services.
The companies are among 28 organizations
added to the blacklist. Along with the tech
companies, the Commerce Department’s filing
targets local government agencies in China’s
northwestern Xinjiang region.
The filing said the listed groups have been
implicated in “China’s campaign of repression,
mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology
surveillance” against Uighurs, Kazakhs and other
predominantly Muslim minority groups.
The Chinese embassy and several of the
targeted companies didn’t immediately return
requests for comment.