US sanctions are being slapped on nine Chinese firms or people and an Indian man accused of helping "rogue states" Iran or Iraq amass weapons of mass destruction, a US official said Friday.
The move seemed to reaffirm US fears that increasingly powerful China could hurt America's interests in the Middle East, where Iran and Iraq are accused of helping violent opponents of the peace process.
The US has strong relations with India that are complicated by Washington's friendship with Pakistan, which is flourishing due to President Pervez Musharraf's support for war on terrorism.
The sanctions on the Chinese involved three cases of sales of advanced conventional arms and chemical and biological weapons components to Iran between September 2000 and October last year, The Washington Times said Friday.
This would be the fourth time since September that the US had penalized Chinese companies for transferring arms-related material or technology to Iran, it added.
"It's nine Chinese entities and one Indian individual," the official said. "It's the nature of this kind of sanction that they re-sanction for newly determined activity."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced at a news briefing that sanctions were being imposed but declined to disclose the nationalities involved and offered few details.
Those sanctioned are barred from doing business with the US government or US companies.
It was unclear what impact the new sanctions would have beyond lengthening the punishment, as many of those targeted are already under similar sanctions under other laws.
The US official declined to name the firms and business people, saying Congress still had to be notified. But he said the Indian man was a corporate officer in an Indian firm and the Chinese list included a man who has been sanctioned in the past, an apparent reference to Chinese businessman Q.C. Chen.
Chen was on a sanctions list that China protested in May when the US punished eight Chinese entities to stop transfers of controlled equipment or technology to Iran.
The new sanctions come under two laws -- the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act of 1992 and the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Boucher said eight of those listed made transfers to Iran under the 1992 law and "knowingly and materially" contributed to Iran's chemical weapons program under the other.
Two of the entities suffered the two-year punishment meted out under that 1992 law for transfers to Iran or Iraq "of goods or technology that contribute to their efforts to acquire chemical weapons or destabilizing numbers and types of advanced conventional weapons," Boucher said.
The chemical weapons law bars imports to the US for at least one year by those targeted while the Iran-Iraq one bars its victims from lucrative US export licenses.
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