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Current Affairs

US adds Alibaba, BYD and other Chinese tech champions to military company blacklist

The Pentagon has added Alibaba, BYD, Baidu and dozens of other Chinese companies to its list of entities it says are linked to China’s military,…

By Samantha Johnson / June 8, 2026
The Pentagon has added Alibaba, BYD, Baidu and dozens of other Chinese companies to its list of entities it says are linked to China’s military, widening a blacklist that increasingly targets sectors at the heart of US-China technological competition.

In a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication on Wednesday, the US Department of Defence designated a broad range of Chinese firms as “Chinese military companies” under Section 1260H of the National Defence Authorisation Act, including electric vehicle makers, artificial intelligence companies, battery manufacturers, biotech firms and solar suppliers. The designation can complicate companies’ access to US capital markets and government business, although it does not automatically trigger sanctions.

Among the most prominent additions were e-commerce giant Alibaba, search and AI company Baidu, electric vehicle manufacturers BYD and Nio, pharmaceutical research and manufacturing company WuXi AppTec, robot maker Unitree, networking equipment maker TP-Link and solar companies JA Solar and Trina Solar. The list also included battery makers CALB and EVE Energy, lidar firms Hesai and RoboSense, and display-panel manufacturer BOE Technology Group.

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Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

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The Pentagon said the companies met statutory criteria for designation based on factors including alleged affiliations with Chinese state entities, military-civil fusion programmes, the People’s Liberation Army or government industrial initiatives. Several companies were cited for participation in programmes such as China’s “Little Giant” or “Single Champion” schemes, which Washington increasingly views as supporting Beijing’s strategic technology ambitions.

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The move marks a significant expansion of a list that has evolved from focusing largely on state-owned defence and telecommunications groups to encompassing a much wider range of commercial technology companies. The latest additions underscore growing US concerns about China’s advances in sectors including artificial intelligence, biotechnology, electric vehicles, robotics, batteries, semiconductors and renewable energy.

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