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China’s “Whitelist” to Limit Key Industries Only to Chinese Companies

Bloomberg reported on November 16 that, in 2016, Beijing established the Information Technology Application and Innovation Working Committee (ITAIWC)  and has been using it to build a “Whitelist” so that entry into certain key industries is limited to “Chinese companies only.” China rejected the report on November 18.

Epoch Times provided some details about the ITAIWC’s actions in the past. In January, the Chinese Institute of Electronics, an institution directly under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released the “White Paper on the Development of China’s Information Technology Applications and Innovations Industry (2021) (the White Paper).” This is the first White Paper that the CIE and 16 enterprises and organizations have created in this field.

The White Paper said the Chinese government has included Information Technology Innovation into its national strategy and stated that, regarding the “2+8” model, the “2” stands for leadership by the party and the government, and the “8” stands for the eight big industries including finance, electricity, telecom, petroleum, transportation, education, medical treatment, and space.

The “Code of Work” of the ITAIWC sets the basic requirements for companies to apply to join its organization. The requirements are that the companies must be officially approved domestic enterprises and institutions engaged in research and development, production and manufacturing in the field of information technology application and innovation; the controlling shareholder of the enterprise must be a Chinese legal person or a Chinese natural person with a Chinese national as the legal person and less than 25 percent of the capital can be foreign capital.

The ITAIWC Technical Advisory Committee was formed in Beijing in March of this year. More than fifty people attended the meeting, including Major General Liao Xiangke, Dean of the School of Computer Science, the People’s Liberation Army’s University of National Defense Science and Technology, and Major General Wu Jiangxing, the Chairman of the China Network Information Technology Military-Civilian Integration Alliance. An official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology delivered a speech at the meeting.

Source: Epoch Times, November 21, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/11/21/n13389371.htm