The U.S. government’s increased reliance on a Pentagon blacklist to target China’s biggest companies threatens to cast a pall over U.S. President Donald Trump’s summit this week with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. The once-obscure roster of companies accused by the Defense Department of helping China’s military has morphed into one of the Trump administration’s most favored tools to pressure Beijing, ensnaring the crown jewels of China’s corporate world and emerging as a major irritant for Xi’s government.
Mandated by Congress and known in Washington as 1260H, the list has rapidly expanded to feature nearly 200 companies, including some of China’s biggest brand names. The most recent version of the list added Chinese artificial intelligence champions Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu, as well as BYD, the world’s biggest producer of electric vehicles.
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