The Biden administration is weighing a move to place sanctions on the Chinese video surveillance firm Hikvision, the Financial Times reported. The move would result in the first designation of a major Chinese tech firm under the Global Magnitsky Act.
The Commerce Department had previously added Hikvision to its export-control blacklist in 2020, over its role in constructing the mass surveillance apparatus used to surveil ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The video-surveillance trade group IPVM recently published an interview with a Kyrgyz survivor of the Xinjiang camp system alleging that he saw Hikvision-branded cameras in his cell.
Then, last year, the White House designated Hikvision under its Chinese military companies list, which barred U.S. nationals from investing in the company.
The expected move to designate Hikvision under the Global Magnitsky Act will result in its addition to the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List, blocking the company’s assets and prohibiting Americans from doing business with it.
This is a significantly more restrictive measure than the previous blacklist designations, considering that the U.S. is one of the largest markets in the world for Hikvision products. Beacon Global Strategies’ Eric Sayers told the FT that this move could force “governments and companies” to “slowly rip and replace old Hikvision products that can no longer be repaired.”
If the administration moves forward with this decision, similar designations of other Chinese tech companies involved in human-rights atrocities and Beijing’s military buildup could eventually follow, especially if the move inspires members of Congress to introduce provisions compelling the administration to do so. Future proposed designations could target some big names, such as Huawei, Chinese genomics company BGI, and drone manufacturer DJI.