BYD and Alibaba among big names aiding China’s military, Pentagon says

The US added Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, internet search provider Baidu and carmaker BYD to a list of companies it believes are aiding Beijing’s military, in a move that could inflame tensions between the countries.The long-awaited update released on Monday supersedes a list from early 2025, and comes less than a month after Donald Trump met China’s Xi Jinping on a visit to Beijing, where the two leaders maintained a delicate trade war truce.The list now includes a broad swathe of China’s top technology companies vital to advancing Beijing’s military and industrial prowess, reflecting Washington’s security concerns amid intense geopolitical competition between the countries.In February, when Trump’s trip to China had been pending, the Pentagon briefly posted an updated index, known as the 1260H or CMC list, but then quickly withdrew it with little explanation.The new version released on Monday mirrors the withdrawn February list with the exception of the inclusion of China’s top memory chipmakers CXMT and YMTC, two companies that had been removed from the short-lived February index.Other companies added include the biotech firm WuXi AppTec, the AI-driven robotics company RoboSense Technology Co Ltd and Unitree, a leading Chinese maker of humanoid and quadruped robots. On 1 June, the US AI chipmaker Nvidia said it planned to work with Unitree to build robots for researchers.Alibaba said in a statement there was “no basis” for its inclusion on the list. “Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy. We will take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company,” its statement said.Baidu “categorically” rejected its inclusion on the list, and in a statement to Reuters said: “The suggestion that Baidu is a military company is entirely baseless. We will not hesitate to use all options available to us to have the company removed from the list.”WuXi AppTec responded that its inclusion on the list was “incorrect”, and said in a statement that it would “take immediate actions to challenge and correct this erroneous designation”.BYD, CXMT, YMTC, RoboSense, Unitree, BOE Technology Group, Tianma Microelectronics and TP-Link Technologies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The Pentagon’s filing did not provide evidence that certain companies were linked to the Chinese military. For several of the companies, the US said that the military links arose from affiliations with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, which governs state-owned companies, and with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.China’s embassy in Washington said Beijing opposed “making discriminatory lists to go after Chinese companies”, and that its firms observe local laws and regulations.“The US should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies,” an embassy spokesperson said in a statement.China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it was “firmly opposed” to the designations and that claims the companies were linked to the Chinese military lacked a factual basis.Some companies, including two entities owned by state-owned oil company China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) – CNOOC China Ltd and CNOOC International Trading – were removed. However, the CNOOC subsidiary China BlueChemical Ltd was added, and the filing noted that CNOOC directly controlled by China’s government.Companies can at times be taken off, not because the US determines they aren’t linked to China’s military, but because they no longer operate in the US or because an entity’s name has changed.The listed firms “qualify for designation as ‘Chinese military companies’” and operate in the US, the Pentagon said in its filing, which is required at least annually under US law. The companies can petition for removal, it added.The House of Representatives China select committee chair, John Moolenaar, said the updated list “is a warning to American businesses, all levels of government and the American people. These Chinese companies are working with the Chinese military against our national interests.”Though the listing does not formally impose sanctions on Chinese companies, under recent US law the defense department will be prohibited starting later this month from contracting directly with companies on the list, and from buying their products or services via third parties beginning in 2027.Reuters contributed to this report