As tensions between Washington and Beijing grow, so does the list of Chinese companies sanctioned or banned by US authorities. Blacklisted for everything from alleged espionage and human rights abuses to aiding and abetting Russia's invasion of Ukraine, you might be surprised how many of the targeted companies are familiar. 

Read on to discover which Chinese firms America has given the cold shoulder – and find out why ByteDance and its flagship product TikTok could be next.

All dollar amounts in US dollars. 

Huawei was initially deemed a threat to America's national security in 2012 on account of its alleged links with the Chinese Communist Party. The tech company also rang alarm bells due to its potential for espionage, as it's been accused of stealing trade secrets in the past.

In 2018, the Trump administration barred American government agencies from using equipment supplied by the global 5G telecoms and smartphone leader. The following year, Huawei was placed on the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List.

A huge blow to the Chinese company, the placement prohibits US firms from supplying Huawei unless they are issued with a license. Yet select suppliers have still been able to continue furnishing the firm with tech unrelated to 5G.

Following a ban on Huawei selling its wares in the country, the Biden administration stopped providing US companies with licenses to export to the much-maligned firm at the start of last year. This February, Biden ramped up the pressure by imposing export bans on a top Chinese chipmaker after it produced a chip for Huawei's Mat 60 Pro phone.

Likewise, telecoms titan ZTE was identified along with Huawei as posing a risk to US national security back in 2012 and was banned by President Trump in 2018 from use by American federal agencies.

The company had also been barred from buying crucial US components for violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran. However, the ban was rescinded after the firm paid a hefty $1 billion penalty.

ZTE was nonetheless put under a five-year probation, which ended in March 2022.

In November 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put a halt on the Shenzhen-based firm exporting to and selling equipment in America again, citing concerns over espionage and the potential threat to US national security. The ban is apparently ongoing. 

Hytera, which makes two-way radios and bodycams for police, firefighters, and other key workers was also barred from exporting to and selling its products in the US by the FCC in November 2022.

On top of concerns over spying, the telecoms firm has been linked to human rights abuses within China.

The Shenzhen-headquartered company was already prohibited from supplying US federal agencies due to espionage concerns.

What's more, Hytera is embroiled in an ongoing intellectual property dispute with Motorola Solutions after it was found to have "unlawfully copied" trade secrets from the American company – another factor that has put it at loggerheads with American authorities.

The world's largest maker of surveillance equipment, Hikvision, which is based in Hangzhou, was barred from supplying US government agencies in 2018.

President Biden took up where his predecessor left off in 2021 when he signed into law a bill banning the import and sale of new products made by the company. The death knell for Hikvision's US operations came in November 2022 when the FCC formalized the ban.

The firm has been linked to the persecution of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, where its CCTV cameras are allegedly used in the region's detention camps. Accordingly, the American ban is on human rights grounds, as well as concerns relating to potential espionage.

In February 2023, Hikvision responded to the ban by suing the FCC, which it argues overstepped its authority in issuing the November order. It's not clear what the current status of the lawsuit is, but we do know the Biden administration imposed new trade restrictions on four Hikvision subsidiaries the month after it was filed.

China's other leading manufacturer of surveillance equipment was also subject to the 2018 Trump administration ban, which came into force the following year.

Like Hikvision, Dahua Technology has been linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where its cameras are reportedly used to monitor Uyghurs and other oppressed minorities. The usage of its products in the US has raised concerns that they're riddled with spyware.

Dahua Technology joined Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, and Hikvision when it too was barred by the FCC from exporting to the US and selling its products in the country.

Along with Hikvision's CCTV cameras, Dahua Technology's surveillance equipment has also been partly banned in the UK and Australia.

As well as Hikvision and Dahua Technology, a slew of Chinese firms have been blacklisted by US authorities for their alleged role in the Chinese state's oppression of Uyghur and other minorities in Xinjiang.

For instance, KTR Group, which makes products for high-speed trains, was one of 11 Chinese companies sanctioned by the US in November 2020.

The company is accused of using forced labor involving Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups and, despite its strenuous denials of the allegations, it remains on the blacklist.

Other US-sanctioned Chinese firms linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang include the former Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger supplier Changji Esquel Textile Co, as well as genetic testing company BGI Genomics.

One of the biggest Chinese companies to feature on America's list of sanctioned entities is China National Offshore Oil Corporation, also known as CNOOC Group.

The organization is in the US government's crosshairs due to its purported role in constructing artificial islands in the South China Sea as a means of strengthening Beijing's claim on the disputed area.

In 2021, the Department of Commerce banned exports to the state-owned oil company. In October that year, the firm was booted out of the New York Stock Exchange.

Now a pariah in America, the embattled company was left with $2 billion worth of US assets to sell and has since been labeled an International Sponsor of War for continuing to trade with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Huawei and ZTE aren't the only Chinese telecoms giants that are banned in the US due to concerns over national security.

In October 2021, the FCC made the decision to bar state-linked firm China Telecom from operating in America, and the prohibition came into effect the following January. The company went on to launch an appeal but the ban was upheld that December. 

A federal appeals court agreed with the FCC that China Telecom "is subject to exploitation, influence and control by the Chinese government" and therefore could be used for state-sponsored cyber espionage.

Other telecoms firms barred from operating in the US include China Mobile, which had its license rescinded in 2019, and China Unicom, which was banned in March 2022.

A number of Chinese companies have angered the US government due to their alleged role in supporting Russia's military with its invasion of Ukraine.

Among them is Sinno Electronics, which is headquartered in Hong Kong. According to German business tracking platform Abrams World Trade Wiki, the firm has exported almost 100% of its telecoms and defense systems products to Russian military networks since 2013 and continues to do so.

Needless to say, the company has been placed on the US Entity List and is under strict American sanctions.

So far, the support given by China has been non-lethal in nature. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (pictured) has raised concerns that Beijing could provide Putin's forces with lethal support such as weapons and ammo, but although private companies have apparently been behind shipments of gunpowder, body armor, and drone machinery, the Chinese government has denied sending lethal aid. This February, Blinken met Chinese diplomat Wang Yi to discuss various topics including Beijing's backing of Russia and ongoing American sanctions.

While many Chinese companies haven't been forthcoming about supplying Russia's military, others have been openly marketing their products and services to the Putin regime.

Marine technology firm Highlander is among them. In February 2022, the Beijing-based business boasted that its products could keep tabs on the warships, submarines, and divers defending Ukraine's coastal cities.

The firm has also been highlighted by the Department of Commerce as a national security threat to the US, given that it's reportedly acquired American-made components for use in Chinese military applications, which could be used to harm the US and its allies.

As might be expected, Highlander has been a fixture on the Entity List since June 2022.

Staying with Chinese companies reportedly helping the Putin regime with its invasion of Ukraine, the Changsha Tianyi Space Science & Technology Research Institute (also known as Spacety China) has been severely sanctioned by the US for its alleged support of the Wagner Group, the infamous paramilitary organization whose mercenaries are fighting for Russia.

The aerospace company, which has offices in Beijing and Luxembourg, is said to have supplied Russian firm Terra Tech with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images of locations in Ukraine. These have been used by the Wagner Group to plan and execute combat operations in the country.

US authorities are going all out to prevent the Chinese government from getting its hands on advanced semiconductor technology that, according to the under secretary of commerce for industry and security Alan Estevez, could be used "to leverage artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and other powerful, commercially available technologies for military modernization and human rights abuses."

As a result, strict export bans have been slapped on some of China's biggest chipmakers, including Yangtze Memory Technologies.

The business, which had been in talks to provide Apple with chips for the iPhone 14, is one of 36 Chinese semiconductor companies that were added to the Entity List in December 2022.

Of the 36, 21 have been identified as developing artificial intelligence projects for China's military, seven are linked to weapons-related programs, and one has been implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

US-China relations deteriorated significantly since a high-altitude balloon was spotted in January 2023 over American airspace (though many media outlets report the hostility has cooled somewhat since).

While Beijing claims the object, which was shot down on February 4 by the US Air Force, was an innocent weather craft that had drifted off course, the US government insists it was being used to gather intelligence.

Consequently, six entities linked to China's aerospace programs have been blacklisted, including Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology Co.

As reported by The Wire China, the company was founded in 2015 by Beihang University aeronautics professor Wu Zhe.

Zhe, together with his business partner Wang Dong, is connected to at least half of the six sanctioned entities and appears to be the brains behind Beijing's high-altitude balloon espionage program.

A whole host of big-name Chinese companies are being cut off from America's chip technology following the Biden's administration's ban on advanced semiconductor sales to entities in the People's Republic, which took effect in October 2022.

By way of example, Alibaba, China's answer to Amazon, is being denied the tech to grow its cloud business and the AI algorithms that are essential to its e-commerce output and other operations.

The Hangzhou-based firm is dependent on chips that are designed by America's Nvidia and Intel. Adding to its woes, Alibaba remains under threat of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, though it's still present on the NYSE – for now, at least – despite rumors of its imminent removal swirling since 2022.

And Alibaba's troubles didn't end there. Last year, the company's business-to-consumer online platform AliExpress was added to the Office of the United States Trade Representative's (USTR) Notorious Markets List of businesses involved in trading counterfeit goods.

Deteriorating US-China relations, coupled with the Biden administration's protectionist trade policies, are hindering Chinese companies from expanding in America. Among them is the world's number-one electric vehicle (EV) maker, the Xi'an-based BYD.

While the company isn't under US sanctions, it's had to put the brakes on growing its business in the land of the free...

Why? In essence, America would simply rather do business with homegrown EV firms.

Tax credits outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 only apply to EVs with critical components sourced in the most part from the US or a country with which America has a free trade agreement. This leaves Chinese EV manufacturers at a distinct competitive disadvantage and effectively out in the cold.

Calls are mounting for a blanket national ban on video-sharing app TikTok amid concerns from both Congressional Republicans and Democrats – not to mention the FBI – that it could be used by the Chinese government to spy on American citizens and threaten US national security.

A previous ban introduced by the Trump administration was revoked in 2021 but proposals to outlaw the app outright have been picking up steam of late. The flagship product of Chinese firm ByteDance, TikTok was banned from federal government-issued devices last year, while at least 32 states have introduced restrictions. A number of US schools and colleges have also called time on the app, while the US government has been investigating ByteDance for improperly accessing the personal information of several American citizens.

TikTok is now at risk of being banned entirely from the US, affecting the approximately 150 million people who are active users of the app in the US today. On 13 March, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – which would ban TikTok from US app stores unless it's spun off from ByteDance – passed the House of Representatives, a major step towards removing the app from American phones. 

Although there are still hurdles to face, not least the question of whether an American company would step in to buy the controversial app, the US government has essentially presented ByteDance with an ultimatum: sell TikTok or face a nationwide TikTok ban.

Now discover which Western companies are investing in China