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Pentagon expands blacklist
The Pentagon updated its list of “Chinese military companies” on Monday, adding Alibaba, BYD and Baidu and expanding the roster to 188 firms, up from 134 in 2025.
“The United States has designated Chinese corporate giants Alibaba, BYD and Baidu as companies that support China’s military, expanding its blacklist to some of the country’s best-known commercial brands”
The designation, created in 2021, bars listed entities from consideration for US defence contracts under rules set to come into effect later this month, and the Pentagon defines “Chinese military companies” as entities owned or controlled by the Chinese military or that contribute to China’s “military civil fusion.”
Beijing condemned the move, with foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian telling reporters that “China has consistently and firmly opposed the United States' generalisation of the concept of national security.”
The update follows a recent Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, where the two sides sought to preserve stability in bilateral ties, and it comes as the US Department of Defence released an earlier version in February that it then unexpectedly withdrew without explanation.
Companies push back
Alibaba said there was “no basis” for its inclusion and stated, “Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy,” while Baidu called the suggestion “entirely baseless” and said it would “not hesitate to use all options available to us to have the company removed from the list.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, condemned the listing as “discriminatory” and an example of the US government “overstretching” the concept of national security, adding that “Chinese companies that do business overseas have been strictly observing laws and regulations of their host countries.”
Republican lawmaker John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on China, framed the updated list as “a warning to American businesses, all levels of government, and the American people,” urging US companies to “stop doing business with these threats to our national security.”
A national security expert, Dennis Wilder, told Al Jazeera that sanctions “range this widely are sanctions that don’t work,” arguing that unless the US decouples from the Chinese economy altogether, the measures are “simply performative.”
What changes next
While the designations do not impose an out-right ban from the US market, the Pentagon said the Defense Department will be prohibited from contracting directly with companies on the list starting later this month, and restrictions are set to extend to products and services acquired through third-party suppliers beginning in June 2027.
“The Department of Defence has added several major Chinese firms to a US tech blacklist of companies said to have ties to the Chinese military”
The Pentagon’s update also targets companies tied to China’s defence industrial base through affiliations with the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to the Pentagon’s explanation in the update.
China’s foreign ministry said it would take “necessary measures” to safeguard the interests of its companies, and Lin Jian urged the US to “correct its wrong practices and stop its unreasonable suppression of Chinese enterprises.”
In Washington, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party called the list “a warning to American businesses, all levels of government, and the American people,” saying companies on US exchanges should be delisted and that “no American company should do business with those named,” “otherwise they are enabling China's military ascendance.”
