U.S. Government Bans 8 More Chinese Tech Firms

Alvine Chaparadza Avatar

Alvine Chaparadza

The United States government is not at a war with Huawei but a trade war with China and its technology sector in particular. In a move that didn’t surprise anyone really, a host of Chinese facial recognition, AI, and data forensics firms have been added to the “entity list”, which is the blacklist of the United States Bureau of Industry. The companies that are in this list cannot do business with US firms, cannot import or export goods and services, and enjoy any type of collaboration with them.

In total, 28 Chinese companies were added onto the entity list, and the act is based on accusations of helping repressive activities in China and mass surveillance. As these companies allegedly aid the oppressive Chinese regime, they are considered dangerous entities for the U.S., and doing business with them is equally risky. The eight most notable of the newly added entities are the following:

  1. Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. (facial recognition)
  2. Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. (facial recognition)
  3. SenseTime Group Ltd. (artificial intelligence)
  4. Megvii Technology Ltd. (artificial intelligence)
  5. Yitu Technologies (artificial intelligence)
  6. iFlytek (voice recognition software)
  7. Xiamen Meiya Pico Information (data forensics)
  8. Yixin Science and Technology Company (nanotech)

Hikvision is a facial recognition technology that’s already working with the government of Zimbabwe and the Harare City Council. Hikvision has made a statement on Bloomberg, expressing their opposition to the decision of their inclusion in the entity list, and also said that this will hamper efforts by global companies to improve human rights around the world. They claim to have taken steps to prove their responsible and respectful handling of citizen data over the past year, and engaged with officials in the U.S. to convince them about their methods.

No matter how each of the affected Chinese firms makes of this, we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out in the long run. For now, it isn’t helping global technological developments, but the impact in society as Hikvision likes to put it is too complicated to evaluate on any basis, especially that of promoting human rights globally through facial recognition systems.

7 comments

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  1. The Principal

    China is the largest threat to the USA’s position as the number 1 economy in the world. These efforts by the USA are meant to frustrate China and derail it’s quest to topple the USA from the pole position. The USA is being a coward in this regard. It’s pathetic!

    Reply
    1. Nothing Personal

      All the companies listed are in highly critical sectors in regards to national security. If the orange one can secure his nation and produce local jobs by doing this, can you blame him? China will continue to grow in the longterm regardless. Countries like ours, Australia etc will keep them well funded for the privilege of farming out all our citizen data and security ‘needs’.

      Reply
  2. Takudzwa Stephen Gondo

    i think US is just jealous because of the success of these companies. US doesn’t like competition so they do anything to crush these companies to the ground

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    So we can safely say the sanctions on Zim Diamonds is not fair ka!

    Reply
  4. Hwemas

    Yaa US is too much on the issue of disturbing other countries economy god must punich them for that that most countries are suffering because of USA like poor country like Zimbabwe now more than 20 years in sanctions what for

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Uri zidofo. They are targeted sanctions on govt infividuals that are corrupt and are abusing human rights. Zanu people will always be sanctioned bcoz they keep ruining everything for everyone. Munonyeperwa ne zanu mazidofo

      Reply
  5. Asmodeus

    Lol! “efforts by global companies to improve human rights around the world”… With your new story on how facial scans are going to be mandatory for internet access in China, this statement rings even more hollow. China, Russia, US, EU; these governments are all devils just the same, its just a matter of how much blood sacrifice they want to seal the deal. As we sell our souls, we should never forget that fact.

    Reply

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