WASHINGTON: The United States said on Friday it would add 33 Chinese firms and institutions to an economic blacklist for helping Beijing spy on its minority Uighur population or because of ties to weapons of mass destruction and China’s military.
Seven companies and two institutions were listed for being “complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labour and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs” and others, the Commerce Department said in a statement. Among the companies named is NetPosa, one of China’s most famous AI companies, whose facial recognition subsidiary is linked to the surveillance of Muslims.