China prepares measures to protect rights of Chinese companies against US blacklist
China said on Friday it would take the necessary measures to uphold the rights and interests of Chinese companies, a day after the United States' Commerce Department added seven supercomputing entities to its blacklist.
The announcement, which was made by foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a regular news briefing, yielded few clues about what those measures would entail.
According to US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, Washington had blacklisted those Chinese entities for "building supercomputers used by China's military actors, its destabilizing military modernization efforts, and/or weapons of mass destruction programs."
"Supercomputing capabilities are vital for the development of many – perhaps almost all – modern weapons and national security systems, such as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons," she added.
“The Department of Commerce will use the full extent of its authorities to prevent China from leveraging US technologies to support these destabilizing military modernization efforts."
For its part, the Chinese Communist Party continued to deny allegations that it engages in industrial espionage.