WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration has plans to blacklist Chinese technology giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, four people familiar with the matter said. It offers a brief extension to Beijing’s top corporations amid broader repression by Washington.
One of the people said, however, that Washington wants to continue this week in an effort to add as many as nine other Chinese companies to the list.
The decision to move plans to add the Chinese technology giants is a blow to the Chinese hawks in the administration, who are trying to bolster the outgoing legacy of President Donald Trump before his presidency ends on January 20.
The retailer Alibaba, the search engine giant Baidu and the leader of the video game Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, were shortlisted to be added to a catalog of suspected Chinese military companies, which would put them on a new US investment ban subject.
But Finance Minister Steven Mnuchin is widely regarded as taking a more demonic stance on China, and has frozen plans, the people said. The companies as well as the treasury, government and defense departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The sudden decision sheds deep light on the deep divisions within the Trump administration over China policy, even as Trump seeks to lock President-elect Joe Biden in aggressive stances against the world’s second largest economy.
Last month, the White House added China’s leading record maker, SMIC, and oil giant CNOOC to the blacklist. Trump also issued an executive order in January banning U.S. transactions with eight Chinese apps, including Al Group, from Ant Group. Both measures were first reported by Reuters.
While Trump advocated a trade deal between the rival countries, relations between Washington and Beijing intensified last year over China’s handling of the deadly coronavirus and its inconsistency with Hong Kong.
Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Alexandra Alper; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Mike Stone; Edited by Leslie Adler and Howard Goller