Beijing slammed the US for blacklisting its supercomputing firms, as Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian promised to take the necessary steps in order to protect Chinese businesses from Washington's sanctions.
The companies added to the blacklist on Thursday include Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Centre, Sunway Microelectronics, the National Supercomputing Centre Jinan, the National Supercomputing Centre Shenzhen, the National Supercomputing Centre Wuxi, and the National Supercomputing Centre Zhengzhou.
The decision became just another step in a chain of escalating tensions between the two nations, as Washington named China "the only competitor" potentially capable of destabilising the global system last month.
Before that, US-China relations were marred by the tariff war and tensions surrounding tech giants Huawei and ZTE. The Trump administration repeatedly accused them of cooperating with Chinese intel and said that Beijing is using their equipment for espionage, which Chinese authorities and the companies denied.