The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on Oct. 7 added 28 Chinese governmental and commercial organizations to the Entity List for allegedly countering U.S. foreign policy objectives.
The Chinese organizations added to the Entity List were identified by the U.S. government to be involved in human rights violations and abuses against China’s Uighur population and other Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
The Entity List additions include the XUAR People’s Government Public Security Bureau, 19 other government agencies and eight commercial firms.
The eight listed Chinese commercial firms — Dahua Technology, Hikvision, IFLYTEK, Megvii Technology, Sense Time, Xiamen Meiya Pico Information Co. Ltd., Yitu Technologies and Yixin Science and Technology Co. Ltd. — are alleged to provide the Chinese government with human surveillance technologies.
A complete list of the Chinese organizations added to the Entity List is available in the Federal Register notice, which is expected to be published Oct. 9.
“Located in XUAR and throughout China, these entities have all been implicated in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention and high-technology surveillance,” the Commerce Department said in a press release.
The Entity List subjects U.S. exporters to specific export licensing requirements and prohibitions when conducting business with the listed entities. Organizations or persons who violate U.S. export control rules — as defined under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) — are subject to criminal penalties and administrative sanctions.
An End-User Review Committee (ERC), which is composed of export control officials from the Commerce, State, Defense, Energy and Treasury departments, decides which entities are added to the Entity List.
