US President Donald Trump on Tuesday passed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay payment app, heightening the conflict between the United States and China. The new order is among the list of bans imposed by the US president during recent times. The ban comes as the transition date of President-elect Joe Biden nears.
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The US-China tensions have caused large scale confusions in the financial markets too as the New York Stock Exchange took a U-turn on Monday and reversed its order of delisting three Chinese telecom majors.
Here is the list of Chinese companies banned by the Trump administration recently:
1. The Trump administration passed an executive order on Tuesday to control what it said was Chinese pervasiveness in the US for the protection of national security by banning Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay, and WPS Office. The order that asserted the ban on the use of apps that help the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gain access to personal information of Americans and federal employees is set to be effective after 45 days.
2. In another executive order dated November 12, 2020, the Trump administration prohibited dealing in publicly traded securities of companies linked with Chinese communist military. Following the order, the New York Stock Exchange earlier this week moved to delist China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom from January 11. The move to delist the three telecom majors was later reversed abruptly due to the ambiguity in the order, reported Reuters. However, as of today, the bourse is reportedly mulling to take a second U-turn and de-list the companies, according to a Reuters report. After the earlier order, there were also reports about Chinese oil majors to be the next in line to be removed from the bourse.
{{/usCountry}}2. In another executive order dated November 12, 2020, the Trump administration prohibited dealing in publicly traded securities of companies linked with Chinese communist military. Following the order, the New York Stock Exchange earlier this week moved to delist China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom from January 11. The move to delist the three telecom majors was later reversed abruptly due to the ambiguity in the order, reported Reuters. However, as of today, the bourse is reportedly mulling to take a second U-turn and de-list the companies, according to a Reuters report. After the earlier order, there were also reports about Chinese oil majors to be the next in line to be removed from the bourse.
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3. China’s top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and drone producer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd were also blacklisted by the Department of Commerce last year. The order dating December 18, 2020, said, “We will not allow advanced U.S. technology to help build the military of an increasingly belligerent adversary.” Sixty other entities were also deemed by the department as working contrary to the national security and foreign policy of the US.
4. The Commerce Department also banned transactions related with China’s TikTok and WeChat in September, following an executive order dated August 6,2020 banning TikTok in an attempt to safeguard national security. The order was also followed by a federal judge blocking the ban of the ByteDance’s short-form video app.