US imposes trade curbs on China, Russia firms over human rights

Beijing: The United States unveiled trade restrictions Tuesday on eight companies, including two Chinese firms and several from Russia, alleging human rights violations. The China-based companies identified include Zhejiang Uniview Technologies, which US officials accuse of enabling human rights violations such as surveillance of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups.

The other firm named by the US Commerce Department was Beijing Zhongdun Security Technology Group, which is said to develop and sell products allowing public security authorities to carry out rights violations. The businesses were added to an “entity list,” which requires US companies to have a license before exporting to them.

“Human rights abuses are contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez in a statement. Adding these companies to the entity list aims to “ensure that US technology is not used to enable human rights violations and abuses,” he added.

A man who answered a call to a cellphone number associated with Beijing Zhongdun hung up after an AFP reporter identified himself. Calls to two numbers associated with Zhejiang Uniview went unanswered. The US government and lawmakers in several other Western countries have taken aim at China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

Rights groups have said at least one million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in the region and face various abuses — while Beijing vehemently denies the accusations. Among other firms targeted on Tuesday were two in Myanmar and two others in Russia over their roles in supplying Myanmar’s military with components allowing them to carry out acts like aerial attacks against civilians, the Commerce Department said. Two other Russian entities were included for providing facial recognition technology to Moscow “to target peaceful protesters, an integral component of Russia’s mass surveillance apparatus.”