U.S. blacklists Chinese tech firms, agencies, over Uighur mistreatment as trade talks resume

(Image credit: Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images)

published 8 October 2019

On Monday, the U.S. and China resumed high-level trade talks in Washington after a two-month hiatus and the U.S. blacklisted 28 Chinese organizations, barring them from buying goods from U.S. companies without government permission. The addition of the 28 local government agencies and tech companies to the Commerce Department's Entity List, combined with skeptical comments from China and President Trump, dimmed the prospects for a breakthrough in the U.S-China trade war, Reuters reports.

The Commerce Department said the 28 blacklisted agencies and companies "have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups." China has detained an estimated 1 million Uighurs in Xinjiang province and placed them in prison-like "vocational training centers."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.