US punishing China for Unhealthy treatment of Muslins

Uighur Muslims during a protest

The United States government has expanded its trade blacklist to include some of China's top artificial intelligence startups, punishing Beijing for its treatment of Uighur Muslims and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities and ratcheting up tensions ahead of high-level trade talks in Washington this week.

The move by the US Commerce Department targets 20 Chinese public security bureaus and eight companies, including video surveillance firm Hikvision, as well as leaders in facial recognition technology SenseTime Group Ltd and Megvii Technology Ltd.

                   Uighur Muslims

Also added to the so-called "Entity List" are the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region People's Government Public Security Bureau, 19 subordinate government agencies and eight commercial firms, according to a Commerce Department filing.

The department filing said the "entities have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups".