- Chinese firms Alibaba, Baidu, and others were added to a Pentagon list aiding China’s military
- The list bars US contracts with these companies but does not impose formal sanctions
- Pentagon later withdrew the list after its release, raising diplomatic concerns
Chinese giants such as Alibaba, Baidu and others were added in the list of companies aiding China's military by the Trump administration, news agency Reuters reported on Friday. The move mounted pressure on Beijing in the run up to an expected meeting between the leaders of the both states. However, shortly after its release, Pentagon withdrew the list.
While Pentagon's 1260H list does not formally levy sanctions on listed firms, a new law prevents the department from signing deals, entering into contracts and procuring from these companies, the report said.
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Automaker BYD, biotech firm WuXi AppTec, AI-driven robotics technology company RoboSense Technology Co Ltd. were also included in the list; while chip memory maker YMTC was removed. COSCO SHIPPING Finance Co Ltd. and ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. are two other companies that were removed from last year's list.
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"Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy," An Alibaba spokesperson told Reuters, adding that there was no basis for their inclusion and threatened legal action.
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The now-withdrawn list could have sparked tensions between the US and China, and antagonise Beijing not long after a trade truce was reached between China's Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in October.
Other Chinese majors such as Tencent Holdings and CATL are already part of the list. Tencent is one of Beijing's largest tech companies, while the latter is a big name among battery manufacturers in the electric vehicle industry.
At the time of their inclusion, Tencent had said that its business would be not be impacted and that it would initiate a reconsideration process to correct its inclusion, while CATL claimed it was "not engaged in any military-related activities".
US lawmakers sent a letter to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pushing for the addition of a host of Chinese tech giants including AI firm DeepSeek, smartphone maker Xiaomi and electronic display maker BOE Technology to Pentagon's list in December.
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