Washington Mulls Alibaba and Tencent Ban

Just weeks before the end of the current U.S. administration, authorities are reportedly discussing the expansion of a blacklist of companies linked to China’s military with the inclusion of major tech giants, Alibaba and Tencent.

Discussions considering the inclusion have been underway for a few weeks amongst State and Defense Department officials, according to a report citing unnamed sources.

The original blacklist was released in November with 31 companies including the likes of surveillance firm Hikvision and semiconductor maker SMIC.

Most recently, the Chinese military investment ban also included an unusual case involving China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom Hong Kong. After an initial decision to delist the three Chinese telecommunication firms, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) reversed the call this Monday before making yet another reversal on Tuesday.

Sources said that there was ambiguity about whether or not the aforementioned firms were subject to the bans which subsequently led U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to phone NYSE president Stacey Cunningham to tell her he disagreed with the decision to reverse the delisting.

The investment bans are part of a series of moves made by the Trump administration to drive decoupling between U.S. capital and the Chinese economy.

In addition to military-linked companies, Washington also seeks to tighten on Chinese firms that fail to pass U.S. auditing standards, pressuring them with the prospects of delisting from American bourses.

This follows a series of headline accounting scandals amongst U.S.-listed Chinese companies such as the $300 million inflation of sales figures at Luckin Coffee or 83 tons of collateralized fake gold bars at Kingold.