US blacklists another 33 Chinese entities

Chinese technology firms roundly condemned a move by the US administration to add another 33 companies and government organizations to its trade blacklist, in a move that ups the stakes in a tech stand-off between the US and China, reported the South China Morning Post.

The US Commerce Department said on Friday it was putting 24 more Chinese governmental and commercial organizations on its so-called “Entity List”, which prevents them from buying US-made technology, on national security grounds – including internet security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co., cloud robot and services start-up Cloudminds and lidar company Skyeye Laser Technology.

China’s Ministry of Public Security Institute of Forensic Science and eight other Chinese companies were also added to the list, including state-backed artificial intelligence (AI) unicorn CloudWalk and AI start-up Intellifusion.

Qihoo 360 said it “firmly opposed this irresponsible [US] accusation” and opposed the US Department of Commerce’s “politicization of business activities and technological research and development.”