Pentagon names 20 Chinese firms it says are military-controlled

The Pentagon put Huawei Technologies Co. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. on a list of 20 companies it says are owned or controlled by China’s military, opening them up to potential additional U.S. sanctions.

In letters to lawmakers dated June 24, the Pentagon said it was providing a list of “Communist Chinese military companies operating in the United States.” The list was first requested in the fiscal 1999 defense policy law.

The move’s implications were not immediately clear, but it came as relations between the two superpowers continue to deteriorate, and as China has become an election year issue in the U.S.

“The list put out today by the Pentagon is a start but woefully inadequate to warn the American people about the state-owned and -directed companies that support the Chinese government and Communist Party’s activities threatening U.S. economic and national security,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“The list only touches the surface of the Chinese government’s exploitation of U.S. capital markets at the expense of retail investors and pensioners by omitting the networks of affiliated and subsidiary companies.”

In addition to Huawei and Hikvision, the list includes China Railway Construction Corp., China Telecommunications Corp, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. and Panda Electronics Group.

Derek Scissors, a China expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said it was “long overdue for the government to indicate which Chinese firms have tight links to the PLA. But if there’s no meaningful action coming with that, it would just be posturing, possibly in reaction to the Bolton book.”

In his memoir which on sale Tuesday, former National Security Advisor John Bolton asserted that Trump asked Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to bolster purchases of American agricultural products to help him win re-election in November. Trump has rejected that claim.

The companies on the list are:

Aviation Industry Corporation of China; China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation; China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation; China Electronics Technology Group Corporation; China South Industries Group Corporation; China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation; China State Shipbuilding Corporation; China North Industries Group Corporation; Huawei Technologies Co.; Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.; Inspur Group; Aero Engine Corporation of China; China Railway Construction Corporation; CRRC Corp.; Panda Electronics Group; Dawning Information Industry Co.; China Mobile Communications Group; China General Nuclear Power Corp.; China National Nuclear Power Corp.; China Telecommunications Corp.