BYD and Alibaba among big names aiding China’s military, Pentagon says

The US added Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba , internet search provider Baidu and automaker BYD to a list of companies it believes are aiding Beijing’s military, in a move that could inflame tensions between the countries. The long-awaited update released on Monday supersedes a list from early 2025, and comes less than a month after Donald Trump met China’s Xi Jinping on a visit to Beijing, where the two leaders maintained a delicate trade war truce. The list now includes a broad swathe of China’s top technology firms key to advancing Beijing’s military and industrial prowess, reflecting Washington’s security concerns amid intense geopolitical competition between the countries. In February, when Trump’s trip to China had been pending, the Pentagon briefly posted an updated list, known as the 1260H or CMC list, but then quickly withdrew it with little explanation. The new version released on Monday mirrors the withdrawn February list with the exception of the inclusion of China’s top memory chipmakers CXMT and YMTC, two companies that had been removed from the short-lived February index. Other companies added include biotech firm WuXi AppTec, AI-driven robotics company RoboSense Technology Co Ltd and Unitree, a leading Chinese maker of humanoid and quadruped robots. On 1 June, US AI chipmaker Nvidia said it planned to work with Unitree to build robots for researchers. Alibaba said in a statement there was “no basis” for its inclusion on the list. …