China blasts US military-company list, cites Trump-Xi summit
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- China's Ministry of Commerce said Saturday it firmly opposes the Pentagon's addition of several prominent Chinese businesses to its list of military companies, accusing the US of ignoring the consensus from Trump's mid-May summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing.
- The Pentagon on Monday added non-state-owned firms BYD, Alibaba, and Baidu to its list identifying companies with ties to the Chinese military, barring them from landing US defense contracts.
- BYD, Alibaba, and Baidu said earlier there is no basis to include them on the list.
- The Chinese MOFCOM spokesperson said the US "disregarded the overall interests of bilateral economic and trade relations, continuously generalized the concept of national security, and abused state power to unjustifiably suppress Chinese enterprises."
- Trump and Xi Jinping met in Beijing in mid-May and agreed to boost economic ties, including China's purchase of more US agricultural products and Boeing jets, and the setting up of separate trade and investment boards.
Why it matters: This puts Washington and Beijing on a collision course over what counts as a summit deliverable: China says the Pentagon's listing of BYD, Alibaba, and Baidu violates the spirit of Trump's May meeting with Xi Jinping, and the named companies are civilian EV, e-commerce, and AI firms, giving Beijing a sharper rebuttal to US national-security framing.
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