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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

US targets companies with military connections, hits Chinese officials with new visa restrictions

  • Commerce Department’s ‘military end user’ list, including dozens of aerospace companies, will face US buying restrictions
  • Mike Pompeo’s new restrictions on Chinese officials broaden the scope of those believed to have been responsible for human rights abuses

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the press at the State Department in Washington in November. Photo: AFP
Robert Delaney

The US government announced more punitive actions directed at Beijing on Monday with the Commerce Department releasing a list of dozens of Chinese companies, many in the aviation sector, that will be blocked from buying US technology and the State Department announcing broader visa restrictions on Chinese officials.

The Commerce Department’s first tranche of “military end user”, or MEU, companies include 58 Chinese companies – including the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the state-owned military aerospace contractor that is a key supplier for a commercial aircraft that Beijing is trying to bring to market – and 45 Russian ones.

“This action establishes a new process to designate military end users on the MEU List to assist exporters in screening their customers for military end users,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

“The Department recognizes the importance of leveraging its partnerships with US and global companies to combat efforts by China and Russia to divert US technology for their destabilizing military programs, including by highlighting red flag indicators such as those related to Communist Chinese military companies identified by the Department of Defense,” he said.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington last year. Photo: AFP
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington last year. Photo: AFP

While most of the MEU companies are in the aviation and aerospace industry, there were some other entities including the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology’s Laboratory of Toxicant Analysis and the Second Institute of Oceanography, a unit of China’s Ministry of Natural Resources.

Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the state-owned company building China’s first domestically produced commercial aircraft, is not on the list.

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