On December 10, year US Department of Treasury impose sanctions, including banning US investments, on SenseTime, a Chinese artificial intelligence Company accused of developing facial recognition software used to target China’s predominantly Muslim Uighur community. The move, part of a series of sanctions introduced on Human Rights Day, prompted SenseTime to postpone a planned IPO in Hong Kong.
Officially, the Treasury added SenseTime to the list of China Military-Industrial Complex (CMIC), created under a different name in November 2020 by then President Trump. In June, President Biden removed Some of the companies on the list have added others and expanded their reach to include Chinese companies selling surveillance technology. On December 16, year eight companies has been added to the blacklist, including drones DJI and facial recognition company Megvii.
The moves show that, despite how loosely worded, Biden has largely maintained Trump’s China policies. In some cases, the administration even elaborated on measures signed by Trump, while cutting back on policies deemed legally vulnerable and increasing emphasis on human rights.
There have been several departures. In June, Biden revoked the so-called TikTok ban, already twice blocked by US judges. The ban would require the Chinese-owned short video app to leave the US, unless parent company ByteDance sold TikTok for an American company. Then Biden called for a national security assessment of all foreign-owned apps within 180 days. The deadline for that review has passed without any major announcement.
In September, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou boarded an Air China charter flight from Vancouver to Shenzhen, where she was greeted with roses and a flag-waving crowd. Meng, the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, has been detained in Canada for three years at the request of US authorities, who have accused her of helping Huawei evade sanctions on Iran. Meng participated in a adjournment agreement with the Department of Justice, allowing her to return home in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing — and erasing a key sticking point in US-China relations.
But the Biden administration has tightened other restrictions on Huawei. Trump has put the Chinese company in a list that often prevents US companies from doing business with it. US companies must apply for a special license to sell software or components such as microchips to Huawei and others on the list. In March, the Biden administration make it harder for US companies to obtain those licenses. A few months later, Huawei separated from the Honor smartphone division, so that devices sold outside of China can once again be used Google‘S Android operating systems and other software.
“I don’t see a lot of views between the two administrations on national security,” said Nazak Nikakhtar, a former Commerce Department official under Trump.
To a large extent, Biden is accepted because he needs to avoid sparking World War III while not appearing “soft” given the increasingly negative view of China by the US public and Congress. And China’s more authoritarianism under President Xi Jinping – particularly its demolition of democracy in Hong Kong and its suppression of Muslims – has made it harder to re-establish ties. . Mr. Biden recently said the US would not send any government officials to the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February.
But analysts say Biden has not offered a separate policy towards China, except to say that the two countries are competitors. “It is very difficult for the Biden administration to move in a high-profile, overt, or fast-paced way, because of the long overdue political space,” said Susan Thornton, a career diplomat who is responsible for China policy. narrow to things related to China. during the late Obama and early Trump administrations.
Thornton says it’s hard to discern the policy behind the bans and restrictions on the Chinese company. The Biden administration said it’s not trying to contain China, but “if that’s the case, I really don’t understand what we’re doing,” she added. And that’s a tough case to make as Trump-era tariffs remain in place, and the list of Chinese companies facing trade and investment restrictions continues to grow.
