The Pentagon on Monday published a revised roster of prominent Chinese corporations that Washington believes are supporting Beijing’s armed forces, adding e-commerce giant Alibaba, search engine company Baidu, and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD to the designation.
This long-anticipated revision replaces a previous roster from early 2025 and arrives less than four weeks following President Donald Trump’s meeting with China’s Xi Jinping during a Beijing visit, where both leaders preserved a fragile trade war ceasefire.
In February, as Trump’s China visit was still being planned, the Pentagon temporarily published an updated roster, called the 1260H or CMC list, but swiftly retracted it without providing detailed reasoning.
Monday’s release matches the retracted February roster except for adding China’s leading memory chip manufacturers CXMT and YMTC, two firms that had been dropped from the brief February index, disappointing Washington’s China hardliners.
Additional companies now included are biotechnology firm WuXi AppTec, artificial intelligence robotics company RoboSense Technology Co Ltd, and Unitree, a prominent Chinese manufacturer of humanoid and four-legged robots. On June 1, U.S. artificial intelligence chip producer Nvidia announced plans to collaborate with Unitree on building robots for research purposes.
China’s embassy in Washington has not yet provided a response to requests for comment.
Several companies, including two subsidiaries of Chinese state-controlled oil giant China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) — CNOOC China Ltd and CNOOC International Trading — were dropped from the list. Nevertheless, CNOOC subsidiary China BlueChemical Limited was added, and the department’s documentation emphasized that CNOOC operates under direct Chinese government control.
Firms may sometimes be removed not because the U.S. concludes they lack military connections to China, but because they have ceased American operations or changed their corporate names.
Alibaba, Baidu, CXMT, YMTC, Unitree and CNOOC have not yet responded to comment requests.
The designated companies “qualify for designation as ‘Chinese military companies,’” and maintain operations within the United States, according to the Pentagon’s documentation, which federal law mandates at least yearly. The companies may request removal, the filing stated.
The roster now encompasses a wide range of China’s leading technology corporations essential to strengthening Beijing’s military and industrial capabilities, and its release may heighten tensions between the competing nations, which remain engaged in economic and geopolitical rivalry.
While the Pentagon roster doesn’t directly impose sanctions on Chinese corporations, under new legislation, the department will be barred in future years from contracting and purchasing from listed companies.
Inclusion on the roster also signals Pentagon suppliers and other federal agencies about the U.S. military’s assessment of these firms, several of which have filed lawsuits against the United States challenging their designation.
