Beijing Blacklists Defense Companies, Cybersecurity Researchers Exposing Huawei Chips

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Oct 10, 2025 - 09:54 Updated: Oct 10, 2025 - 09:48
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Beijing Blacklists Defense Companies, Cybersecurity Researchers Exposing Huawei Chips

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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Oct. 9 blacklisted nearly a dozen defense companies working in the United States alongside cybersecurity groups that have exposed Chinese state-backed malicious cyberactivity, including espionage, human rights abuses, and sanctions evasion.

The list includes several companies specializing in aerospace, including Alliant Techsystems and DZYNE Technologies and some companies that have been acquired by or merged with other defense firms. They also include anti-drone technology companies, including Dedrone by Axon and Epirus, and defense companies working with Taiwan, including AeroVironment.

A spokesperson for AeroVironment said Beijing’s move would in no way deter the company from its partnership with Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology.

“AV is committed to supporting the national security interests of our nation and global partners,” it said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times, adding that it stands by its recent memorandum of understanding.

The spokesperson also said that the company has no dealings with China that would be affected by its placement on the entity list.

China also blacklisted TechInsights and several of its affiliates.

The analytics group had just recently confirmed that Huawei’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips still contain components from foreign companies TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix. TechInsights is a leading semiconductor analysis firm, known for its reverse engineering and teardowns of cutting-edge chips. This came amid Huawei’s plans to increase output in hopes of competing head-to-head with leading AI chip designer Nvidia.

Chinese authorities also blacklisted Halifax International Security Forum, an annual global security summit that has denounced the CCP’s oppression of the Chinese people and of critics of the regime.

Also on the list is cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, one of several that have published detailed reports about CCP-backed cyber advanced persistent threats. It stands apart from other firms doing so in that it has also published reports showing how the regime is using cyber tools in global efforts to target ethnic and religious minorities.

Discussion of the CCP’s human rights abuses is one of the regime’s so-called red lines, a topic it has repeatedly pressured foreign governments not to raise. In the past, the regime has ended talks or bilateral cooperation and broken agreements with the United States over attention drawn to Taiwan, Hong Kong democracy movements, and the regime’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan Buddhists, and pro-democracy activists.

Huawei Chips

Huawei has faced increasing restrictions by U.S. authorities since it was deemed a national security threat in 2018. Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a vocal supporter of the CCP and is often in attendance at strategically important tech gatherings, offering Huawei’s support to the party’s goals.
The semiconductor supply chain is a global one; no single country is fully self-sufficient. Huawei has designed advanced AI chips but relies on Taiwan’s TSMC to produce them, which U.S. sanctions will not allow.
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In May, the U.S. Commerce Department warned that Huawei’s AI Ascend chips were likely developed using U.S. technologies in a violation of export controls and that the use of these chips anywhere in the world may result in fines.

The United States has increased restrictions on China’s ability to access advanced semiconductor technologies—both the chips themselves and the specialized equipment needed to make them—over the past two administrations.

At the same time, the Chinese regime has called on the domestic industry to meet a 2030 goal of becoming self-sufficient.

The blacklisting of TechInsights comes after a recent round of U.S. regulation updates that will make it harder for Chinese companies to access chip tech.
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