US adds 33 Chinese companies, institutions to economic blacklist

The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday it was adding 33 Chinese companies and other institutions to an economic blacklist for human rights violations and to address U.S. national security concerns involving weapons of mass destruction and other military activities.
The blacklisting marked the latest effort by the Trump administration to crack down on companies with ties to military purchases and to punish Beijing for its treatment of Muslim minorities. It came as Communist Party rulers in Beijing on Friday unveiled details of a plan to impose national security laws on Hong Kong.
The Commerce Department said it was sanctioning nine companies and institutions on grounds they were "complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region."
The government is also adding seven commercial entities to the list for enabling China's high-technology surveillance: CloudWalk Technology; FiberHome Technologies Group and a subsidiary, Nanjing FiberHome Starrysky Communication Development; NetPosa and a subsidiary, SenseNets; Intellifusion; and IS'Vision, according to a statement from the department.