Opinion | Why US sanctions on ‘state-controlled’ Chinese companies smack of hypocrisy
- Washington’s targeting of Chinese enterprises it claims are controlled by Beijing has seen hundreds of companies banned on national security grounds
- Yet the US and other Western countries often exert significant influence over businesses to comply with their ‘requests’. And, in return, they receive billions in subsidies
Sanctions have landed hard and fast on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Not only have the US and other Western governments inflicted economic punishment on Moscow, but many of the world’s biggest multinational companies, including ExxonMobil, Apple, General Motors and Disney, have joined unprecedented boycotts by stopping or curtailing business with and in Russia.
This rare lock-step between Western governments and what are supposed to be apolitical private or publicly traded commercial entities has upended conventional wisdom on the state-business relationship.
Targeting foreign enterprises is one of the oldest and most powerful moves in Washington’s international politics playbook. Chinese companies, in particular, have been hit with an array of US sanctions in recent years.
In February, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security added 33 Chinese entities to its “unverified list”. That is not to be confused, of course, with the bureau’s more damaging “entity list” which has included 611 Chinese companies, institutions and individuals since 2018.
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Russian factory city producing Lada cars braces for tough times amid sanctions for Ukraine invasion
