Alibaba in Washington's crosshairs over alleged military ties

Washington - The United States released an updated list on Monday of Chinese companies it considers to be aiding the country's military.

The list includes, among others, e-commerce giant Alibaba, search engine provider Baidu and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD.

The US Department of Defense announced the designations just weeks before President Donald Trump was due to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, as both sides sought to maintain stability in their bilateral relationship.

The Pentagon's update comes months after it released—and then withdrew—an earlier version of the list without explanation.

The new list is largely similar to the version briefly published in February.

Two memory chip manufacturers were reinstated to the blacklist after being removed at that time: ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies.

“This updated list of Chinese military companies is a warning to American companies, all levels of government and the American people,” said representative John Moolenaar, republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China.

In a statement, he urged US companies to “stop doing business with these threats to our national security” or risk “facilitating China's military rise”.

Among the companies affected are also some of China's leading technology giants involved in the artificial intelligence race, such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.

Baidu rejected its inclusion on the list in a statement on Chinese social media, calling the accusations “completely unfounded”.

“The claim that Baidu is a military company is completely baseless. We will not hesitate to use all resources at our disposal to have the company removed from the list,” a spokesperson said.

Alibaba called its inclusion on the list “a mistake” and threatened legal action.

“Alibaba Group is not a Chinese military company nor is it part of any military-civil fusion strategy,” the company said in a statement.

Trump invited Xi to visit Washington in September. The list could stoke tensions between the world's two largest economies.

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