On Thursday, the Biden administration added seven Chinese entities to the U.S. export blacklist. The new additions include three Chinese firms and four government labs that build or operate supercomputers.
This is the first time Biden has used the Entity List to restrict tech exports to Chinese groups, a move that the previous administration had used repeatedly.
The affected entities, according to a document released by the Department of Commerce, are involved in supporting China's military actors. They will join five other entities involved in making supercomputing that were added to the blacklist in June 2019.
Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded in a Friday press conference that this sanction is the United States "abusing the state power and abusing the 'Entity List'" to suppress Chinese technology companies. Zhao also said China will take the necessary steps to defend the rights of Chinese companies.
The seven entities added this time are: Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, and four local branches of China's National Supercomputing Center in Jinan, Shenzhen, Wuxi and Zhengzhou. Three other National Supercomputing Centers in China were spared from this round of sanctions.