An AR-20 variable pitch multi-rotor drone equipped with a hydrogen battery conducts a test flight on March 13, 2022 at an undisclosed location. Photo: WeChat account of AVIC China Helicopter Research and Development Institute

The Biden administration on Monday added 43 entities including 31 entities from China to an export control list that bars them from accessing US technologies and components, the latest US move to crack down on China's efforts in developing and modernizing its technology.

Washington's irrational obsession of targeting China's rising technology prowess in name of the so-called national security protection lays bare the US' desperate attempt to maintain supremacy in control over global tech in a manner that lacks any market support and which also defies economic rules, observers said.

The Chinese firms added onto the new blacklist include research institute affiliated with aerospace and defense conglomerate Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), Shanghai Supercomputing Technology Co, and Beijing Ryan Wende Science and Technology Co and Xinjiang Kehua Hechang Biological Science and Technology Co, according to the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security website.

The US' escalating curb on China's tech rise comes at the moment when a number of US media outlets have recently played up an possible official visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China in upcoming weeks, which has since been dismissed by China's Foreign Ministry.

"From trade to investment, the Biden administration is essentially targeting China's rising technology prowess, which the US has resolved to do with based on a cold war mentality yet without any support from market logic and economic rules," He Weiwen, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times.

The US-initiated decoupling moves, which are now instead being referred to by Washington as efforts to "de-risk," distort markets and efficiency, and will eventually translate to a huge disadvantage for the US, adding to the costs of its companies and consumers, he noted.

Export controls seem to be the last-ditch effort that the US is pinning its hopes on to hold down China's tech industries. 

Xiang Ligang, a veteran tech analyst, said that except for chips, in major export areas, the US will find it hard to block upstream supplies to China. 

Since former US President Donald Trump came to power, Washington has added more than 600 Chinese companies and institutions onto its entity list without providing any evidence, intending to cut off Chinese technology companies from obtaining relevant technology, equipment, funds and channels.

In October last year, the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security announced an extensive set of regulations which restricted chips made using US tools from being exported to China. 

About the US' action, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said at a briefing on Tuesday that China firmly opposes the US' putting Chinese firms onto its entity list, demanding the US immediately correct the wrong practice of politicizing, instrumentalizing and weaponizing economic, trade and technological issues under the guise of military and human rights-related issues. 

"In order to maintain its hegemony in military science and technology, the US has repeatedly generalized the concept of national security, abused its national power, suppressed Chinese companies, willfully disrupted the international economic and trade order and world trade rules, and seriously endangered the stability of the global industrial and supply chains. It has reached the point of hysteria and unscrupulous methods," Wang said.

China will continue to take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, he added.

Global Times