The Biden administration‘s new move slices U.S. involvement and investment with several Chinese tech companies, among the most notable being the world’s largest drone manufacturer, DJI.
Part of a Broader Sweep of US Ties With China
The Biden administration’s blacklist executive order already included approximately 60 Chinese groups for which U.S. investment and cooperation was barred back in June. This bar on American investment and cooperation with these companies took place because of the groups’ alleged connections with surveillance and military schemes. Several companies on the blacklist are “subsidiaries and affiliates of major state-owned companies” with ties to state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China and Huawei Technologies Co., according to the Wall Street Journal. According to a “senior administration individual,” the blacklisting of Chinese companies is a part of a larger intervention. The Wall Street Journal wrote that it is “[a] broader sweep of steps we are taking to strengthen our approach to competing with China and to countering its actions that are against our interests and our values.”
Data and Privacy Distrust Precedent
The U.S. and China’s relationship and approach to policy only grow further apart amidst back and forth spats as days go by. China’s crackdown on privacy and cryptocurrency, as well as the exit of U.S. companies from the region coupled with espionage and cybercrime incidents, only confirm that the two nations could not be more opposed.
New Sweep Affirms Deepening Schism Between Dominant Nations
According to Reuters, shares “in Chinese healthcare and technology firms tumbled on Wednesday” following the new additions to the blacklist from the US. The US has justified the blacklist by leaning on the fact that the companies on the list are allegedly involved in the surveillance of the “Uyghur Muslim minority,” but there is a broader angle. Not only drone maker DJI has been blacklisted, but facial recognition software companies SenseTime and CloudWalk, as well as image-recognition company Megvii, several cybersecurity groups, artificial intelligence companies, and others that operate in cloud computing and cloud-based surveillance systems. It does not come as a surprise, given the precedent, that the U.S. and China are drastically drifting apart in every conceivable way. After all, the recent wave of cybercrime aimed at the West, as well as the U.S.’s current cybersecurity and privacy remodeling, are exemplary of this schism. According to Pilot Institute, the ban on DJI is not surprising, “given how many people are concerned about how drones can be used to violate their privacy.”
