U.S. widens funding ban to China’s BGI Genomics, drone maker DJI By Reuters

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The usDefense Division added extra Chinese language firms, together with drone maker DJI Expertise and surveillance gear maker Zhejiang Dahua Expertise, to a blacklist that topics them to an funding ban for People.

BGI Genomics Co Ltd, which runs an enormous gene databank and has DNA-sequencing contracts worldwide, and CRRC Corp, which makes and sells rail transit gear, had been additionally among the many 13 added to the listing the Pentagon launched on Wednesday.

Final yr, a Reuters evaluate of scientific papers and firm statements discovered that BGI was utilizing prenatal assessments developed in collaboration with the Chinese language army to gather genetic information for sweeping analysis on the traits of populations.

“The division is set to spotlight and counter the Individuals’s Republic of China’s military-civil fusion technique,” the Pentagon stated in a press release.

That technique supported the Chinese language army’s modernization objectives by making certain its entry to superior applied sciences and experience had been acquired and developed by Chinese language corporations, universities, and analysis applications “that seem like civilian entities,” it added.

The listing bars shopping for or promoting publicly traded securities in goal firms.

An preliminary tranche of about 50 Chinese language firms that included telecoms gear maker Huawei was added to the U.S. listing in June final yr.

On the time, President Joe Biden signed an govt order that banned U.S. funding within the dozens of Chinese language firms alleged to have ties to protection or surveillance expertise sectors.

The order aimed to stop U.S. funding from supporting the Chinese language military-industrial complicated, in addition to army, intelligence, and safety analysis and growth applications.

It was a part of Biden’s efforts to counter China, corresponding to reinforcing U.S. alliances and pursuing giant home investments to bolster American financial competitiveness, as ties bitter between the world’s two greatest economies.

In a press release, the Chinese language drone maker stated there was “no cause” why it had been added to the blacklist.

“DJI stands alone as the one drone firm to obviously denounce and actively discourage army use of our merchandise,” it stated, including that it was not a army firm in China, the US or elsewhere.

“DJI has by no means designed or manufactured military-grade gear, and has by no means marketed or offered its merchandise for army use in any nation,” it stated.