China Warns Microsoft, US Tech Giants Against Cooperating With Trump Ban

China is preparing to curb some technology exports to the United States, the chief editor of China's Global Times newspaper said on Saturday.

The New York Times also reported that the nation's leaders are warning Microsoft and other US-based technology companies against cooperating with the Trump administration’s ban on sales of key American technology to Chinese companies.

Beijing announced last week that it was assembling a list of “unreliable” companies and individuals.

That list was widely seen as a way of hitting back at the Trump administration for its decision to cut off Huawei, the Chinese electronics giant, from sales of American technology.

The United States has accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets and conducting surveillance on behalf of Beijing.

“This is now extremely delicate because the Trump administration, through its brinkmanship tactics, has destabilized the entire relationship, commercial and otherwise,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who studies Chinese economic policy, told the Times.

If enacted, the measures to curb technology exports to the US suggest Beijing would retaliate over restrictions imposed on Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies Co Lt.

In a tweet, the pro-CCP paper's editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said that China "is building a management mechanism to protect China's key technologies."

"This is a major step to improve its system and also a move to counter U.S. crackdown," he added. "Once taking effect, some technology exports to the U.S. will be subject to the control."

Hu did not cite any named sources in his tweet. The Global times is not an official mouthpiece for the Communist Party though its views are believed to at times represent those of its leaders.

Around the time of Hu's tweet, Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) would organize a study to establish a "national technological security management list system."

These announcements come weeks after Washington placed Chinese network equipment maker and smartphone vendor Huawei on a blacklist that effectively bars U.S. companies from supplying it with goods and services.

Soon afterwards, Beijing announced it would release its own list of "unreliable" foreign entities. It also has hinted that it will limit its supply of rare earths to the United States.