China Slams US Blacklisting of Supercomputing Companies, Vows Retaliation

Beijing slammed the US for blacklisting its supercomputing firms, vowing to take necessary steps in order to protect Chinese businesses from Washington’s sanctions.

In a press briefing on Friday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said China would take necessary measures to uphold the rights and interests of Chinese companies.

Earlier on Thursday, the US Commerce Department announced that seven Chinese supercomputing companies were “destabilizing military modernization efforts”, adding them the “Entity List for conducting activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”.

The companies added to the blacklist include Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Centre, Sunway Microelectronics, the National Supercomputing Centre Jinan, the National Supercomputing Centre Shenzhen, the National Supercomputing Centre Wuxi, and the National Supercomputing Centre Zhengzhou.

The decision became just another step in a chain of escalating tensions between the two nations, as Washington named China “the only competitor” potentially capable of destabilizing the global system last month.

Before that, US-China relations were marred by the tariff war and tensions surrounding tech giants Huawei and ZTE. The Trump administration repeatedly accused them of cooperating with Chinese intel and said that Beijing is using their equipment for espionage, which Chinese authorities and the companies denied.

Source: Agencies