Beijing will soon have its own version of the so-called “Entity List” to single out foreign entities, individuals and companies in China that are deemed to be damaging to Chinese companies and might jeopardize China’s national security, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Friday.
Amid the ongoing trade war, the United States has been expanding its entity list, effectively barring US enterprises from doing business with a growing number of Chinese firms, which now also includes Shenzhen-based telecoms giant Huawei.
China’s “unreliable entity list” will include those that “do not obey market rules, violate the spirit of contract and block or cut off supplies to Chinese companies for non-commercial reasons which severely hurt the legitimate rights and interest of Chinese companies,” said the commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng.
The entity list is based on China’s foreign trade law, antitrust law and national security law and the detailed measures will be announced soon, Gao said at a press conference, according to the Global Times, a Chinese nationalist tabloid.
Earlier today, Global Times editor Hu Xijin hinted that China would take “major retaliative measures” against the US for blacklisting Huawei.
Though Beijing did not specify which companies would be put on its blacklist, Huawei suppliers, including Intel, Qualcomm, Google, and ARM, which have halted business dealings with Chinese companies, are among the most likely candidates for the first batch of companies to be added to the list.