The administration of US President Donald Trump is close to declaring that 89 Chinese aerospace and other companies have military ties, restricting them from buying a range of US goods and technology, a draft copy of the list seen by Reuters showed.
The list, if published, could further escalate trade tensions with Beijing and hurt US companies that sell civil aviation parts and components to China, among other industries.
A spokesman for the US Department of Commerce, which produced the list, declined to comment. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC), which is spearheading Chinese efforts to compete with Boeing and Airbus, is on the list, as is the Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) and 10 of its related entities.
The list is included in a draft rule that identifies Chinese and Russian companies the US considers “military end users,” a designation that means US suppliers must seek licenses to sell a broad swath of commercially available items to them.
According to the rule, applications for such licenses are more likely to be denied than granted.
Trump has in the past few months stepped up his actions against China.
On Nov. 12, he unveiled an executive order prohibiting US investments in Chinese companies that Washington says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military.
The pending list comes after the department expanded the definition of “military end user” in April.
The April rule includes not only armed service and national police, but any person or entity that supports or contributes to the maintenance or production of military items — even if their business is primarily non-military.
The export restriction applies to items as disparate as computer software such as word processing programs, scientific equipment such as digital oscilloscopes, and aircraft parts and components.
In terms of aircraft, the items include everything from brackets for flight control boxes to the engines themselves.
News of the list comes at a sensitive time for the US aerospace industry as Boeing seeks Chinese approval of its 737 MAX after it was cleared by US regulators last week.
In March last year, China was the first nation to ground the jet following two fatal crashes, and it is already expected to wait months to lift the ban.
A spokesman for Boeing declined to comment.
Washington trade lawyer Kevin Wolf, a former department official, said that the department had shared the draft rule with a technical advisory committee of industry representatives, and it should have been kept confidential.
The rule and list still could be modified, Wolf said, adding that the clock was running out for it to go into effect under the Trump administration as it would need to be cleared and sent to the US Federal Register, the official US publication for rules, by the middle of next month.
In the draft rule seen by Reuters, the department said that being able to control the flow of US technology to the listed companies was “vital for protecting US national security interests.”
However, a former US official who did not want to be identified, said “merely creating a list and populating it is a provocative act.”
An aerospace industry source said it could spur China to retaliate.
The inclusion of COMAC would come as a surprise to at least one major US supplier, which had determined the firm was not a military end user, the industry source said.
A list also would provide European competitors with an opening to promote their manufacturers, by pointing out they do not have to clear such hurdles, even if the US grants the licenses, the industry source said.
General Electric and Honeywell International supply COMAC and have joint ventures with AVIC.
Besides the 89 Chinese listings, the draft rule also designates 28 Russian entities, including Irkut, which is also aiming to break into Boeing’s market with its MC-21 jetliner development.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS