The updated 1260H list now covers 188 Chinese entities and bars the Pentagon from contracting with them starting later this month
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The Pentagon designated dozens of Chinese companies as Chinese military companies Monday, adding prominent firms including e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, electric vehicle maker BYD, and search and AI company Baidu to a list that restricts their ability to do business with the U.S. government.
The updated list, known as the 1260H or CMC list, now covers 188 Chinese entities, up from roughly 130 on last year's version, the Pentagon said in its filing. Federal law bars the Defense Department from entering into direct contracts with any listed company once restrictions take effect later this month, with a separate prohibition on acquiring goods or services through intermediaries kicking in June 2027.
Also added for the first time are pharmaceutical contractor WuXi AppTec, humanoid robotics maker Unitree, memory chipmakers ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies, router company TP-Link Technologies, lidar producer RoboSense Technology, and EV maker NIO $NIO, among others. About 10 businesses were removed from the prior list because the Pentagon said they no longer operate in the U.S.
The Pentagon said Alibaba, BYD, and Baidu each qualify for designation because they are affiliated with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and are military-civil fusion contributors to China's defense industrial base. Alibaba and Baidu are also indirectly affiliated with China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the filing said. BYD additionally resides in or is affiliated with a military-civil fusion enterprise zone.
All three companies rejected the designations. "Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy. We will take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company," the company said in a statement. Baidu called its inclusion "entirely baseless," and BYD said the determination "seriously contradicts the facts" and pledged to use "all feasible administrative and legal means" to contest it. WuXi AppTec said the designation was "erroneous" and that it would pursue all available remedies.
China's foreign ministry said the U.S. was drawing up "discriminatory lists" under the pretext of national security and warned that China would take "necessary measures" to protect Chinese companies' rights, according to Reuters.
An earlier version of the expanded list was posted and then pulled back in February — the Pentagon offered no public rationale for the retraction — during the run-up to President Donald Trump's Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at which the two countries reached a trade truce. Monday's release diverges from the withdrawn February list in one significant respect: it brings back memory chipmakers CXMT and YMTC, whose absence from the earlier version had provoked sharp rebukes from China hawks on Capitol Hill, according to CNBC.
Designation on the list is not necessarily permanent; affected companies have the option of formally requesting that the Pentagon reconsider their status by submitting documentation and evidence to the Defense Department.
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