Pentagon Adds Alibaba, BYD, and Baidu to List of Firms with Alleged Chinese Military Links

The Pentagon has sharply widened its official list of Chinese companies said to be operating in support of the People’s Liberation Army, adding dozens of civilian tech giants in a move that deepens the rift between Washington and Beijing over the boundaries of commercial activity and national security. The updated roster, published under the 2021 National Defence Authorisation Act, now names 188 entities—including e-commerce leader Alibaba, search engine Baidu, electric-vehicle maker BYD, robotics firm Unitree, and biotech company WuXi AppTec—that the Department of Defence considers part of China’s military-industrial ecosystem. Viewed from Washington, the designations signal growing alarm over Beijing’s “civil-military fusion” strategy, which openly seeks to harness private-sector innovation for defence modernisation, yet the list does not itself impose sanctions, only barring the firms from U.S. defence contracts and alerting American institutions to reputational risk.

From Beijing, the response was swift and sharp. The Chinese embassy in Washington accused the United States of “overstretching the concept of national security and making discriminatory lists to go after Chinese companies,” while a foreign-ministry spokesperson urged Washington to “stop repressing” Chinese firms. Alibaba separately stated there was “no basis” for its inclusion, and both Baidu and BYD have rejected the characterisation. The diplomatic sting was amplified by the timing: the list was unveiled just weeks after President Trump met President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where both sides pledged to maintain stability in bilateral ties. Adding to the confusion, the Pentagon had briefly released a similar list in February only to withdraw it minutes later without explanation, before reissuing it now with most of the same names.

Analysts in Hong Kong and London note that while designation under Section 1260H carries no immediate financial penalties, it escalates reputational and regulatory risk, potentially paving the way for future investment curbs and sanctions. The list already prevents the named companies from securing U.S. defence contracts, and legal experts quoted in the territory warn that its expansion could spook institutional investors and complicate access to American capital markets. Among the freshly added entities, the inclusion of robotics and electric-vehicle manufacturers such as Unitree and BYD, as well as AI-driven lidar producer RoboSense, reflects Washington’s focus on dual-use technologies that can feed directly into autonomous military systems.

The list’s reappearance after the February false start, with two memory-chip makers reinstated, suggests the Pentagon is now proceeding with a more settled determination. Yet Beijing shows no sign of retreating from its civil-military fusion model, and the commercial reach of its tech champions continues to grow globally. Western capitals are increasingly weighing how to balance security anxieties with the economic ties that bind them to China’s innovation engine, and many expect Washington to tighten the financial screws further in the months ahead, whether through direct sanctions or by pressuring allies to follow suit.