US widens its campaign against Chinese tech companies with eye on surveillance firms
- China’s hi-tech champions are being denied access to US components because of national security concerns
- US fears Chinese surveillance firms’ products can be used to aid espionage, according to media reports
Hikvision Digital Technology’s presence loomed large at a security exposition last month in Hangzhou, taking up the entire upper floor of the convention centre. On the ground floor, Dahua Technology, its smaller rival, shared space with other security technology companies. Luminescent displays of road traffic flows, emergency response statistics and crime reports greeted the hundreds of trade visitors.
The US is now considering cutting off the flow of vital American technology to five Chinese surveillance companies, widening a dragnet beyond Huawei Technologies to include world leaders in video surveillance as it seeks to challenge China’s treatment of minority Uygurs in the country’s west, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday.
The US is deliberating whether to add Dahua, Hikvision, Megvii and two other surveillance companies to a blacklist that bars them from US components or software, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The two others under consideration are Meiya Pico and Iflytek, according to one of the people.
If the US does place the companies on a trade blacklist, they would join Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms equipment supplier, and other Chinese hi-tech champions that are having their access to US components shut off because they are deemed to pose a threat to US interests.
