US admits Xiaomi isn’t a ‘Communist Chinese military company’ after all
The US has formally removed Xiaomi from its trading blacklist. The US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a final order yesterday that vacated the Department of Defense’s designation of Xiaomi as a “Communist Chinese military company” (CCMC), which would have prohibited Americans from investing in the Chinese consumer tech giant.
“The Company is grateful for the trust and support of its global users, partners, employees and shareholders,” a Xiaomi spokesperson says in a statement to The Verge. “The Company reiterates that it is an open, transparent, publicly traded, independently operated and managed corporation. The Company will continue to provide reliable consumer electronics products and services to users, and to relentlessly build amazing products with honest prices to let everyone in the world enjoy a better life through innovative technology.”
The US issued the CCMC designation on January 14th, in the final week of the Trump administration. Xiaomi sued the government the following month, and in March won a preliminary injunction blocking the designation, with a judge describing the blacklisting as “arbitrary and capricious.” Earlier this month Xiaomi and the DoD announced that they’d come to an agreement to resolve the matter among themselves.
While Xiaomi has managed to get out of its tangle with the US government, the Biden administration hasn’t given any indication that Trump’s sanctions targeting Huawei will be lifted. Huawei’s consumer division has been crippled by the resulting inability to do business with companies based in the US, but the company also makes network equipment that several politicians have accused of posing a national security threat. This week founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei reportedly sent an internal memo to staff saying that Huawei should pivot to software as a way to get around US sanctions.
The US has formally removed Xiaomi from its trading blacklist. The US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a final order yesterday that vacated the Department of Defense’s designation of Xiaomi as a “Communist Chinese military company” (CCMC), which would have prohibited Americans from investing in the Chinese…
