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After Huawei, US could blacklist Chinese surveillance tech firm

News Service
17:05 - 22/05/2019 Wednesday
Update: 17:07 - 22/05/2019 Wednesday
REUTERS
A Hikvision logo is seen at an exhibition during the World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin
A Hikvision logo is seen at an exhibition during the World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin

UIGHUR CONNECTION

Shares in Hikvision, 42% held by state-owned firms, opened 10% lower on Wednesday. It later pared some losses to trade down 6%. Dahua shares slumped as much as 9.2%.

Jefferies analyst Rex Wu downplayed the impact of a possible ban on Hikvision, saying the United States accounted for roughly 5% of the company's sales.

"Most AI solutions are sold to the government, public and enterprise sectors in China. Hikvision may be able to acquire GPU (graphics processing unit) via local distributors," Wu said.

Hikvision and Dahua were specifically cited in a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump's top advisers last month, signed by more than 40 lawmakers, which called for tighter U.S. export controls over China's treatment of Muslim minority.

China has faced growing global condemnation for setting up facilities in its western region of Xinjiang that U.N. experts describe as mass detention centres holding more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

Beijing has said its measures in Xinjiang, which reportedly also include widespread surveillance, are aimed at stemming the threat of Islamist militancy. The camps that have opened are vocational training centres, it has said.

In a separate email on Wednesday, a Hikvision spokeswoman said the firm took these concerns seriously and had since last October been engaging with the U.S. government on the subject.

#China
#Huawei
#Trump
#US
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