The News
The Pentagon blacklisted China’s largest battery firm and a social-media company, a move that not only bars the US defense department from working with them but deters American businesses and investors from doing so, too.
Both CATL and Tencent, as well as China’s foreign ministry, criticized the decision, which showcased the deepening rift between Washington and Beijing, even as their economies remain intertwined: CATL, the world’s biggest battery manufacturer, works with US carmakers including Ford and Tesla — the latter run by Elon Musk, a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump. Tencent said in a statement that it would work with the Defense Department to “correct this mistake,” and take legal action if needed.
Yet according to the Pentagon, both Chinese firms along with a raft of others have links to the country’s military as part of Beijing’s “military-civil fusion strategy.”