U.S. President Joe Biden has signed an order amending the country's investment ban on companies linked to China's military and surveillance sectors.
The White House named 59 companies Friday, all of which are claimed to have ties to the People's Liberation Army and China's surveillance systems.
The revised investment blacklist will take effect Aug. 2. White House officials said investors will only have 12 months starting on that date fully divest.
The order partly expands on a policy issued by former President Donald Trump, which was recently challenged in court for its vague criteria in determining which companies end up on the list. The initial policy only included companies that had ties with China's military. The amendment now expands that to include companies with ties to China's surveillance industry.
Most of the companies on the new list were already on the Trump administration's investment ban list. This includes China's largest telecommunications companies such as China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom. It also includes Huawei Technologies and China's largest server provider Inspur.
Share prices of some of the companies were slightly affected following the announcement. Hikvision's shares dropped by 2.2%, while SMIC fell by 3.3% in Hong Kong.
Hikvision released a statement following the signing of the order, stating that it still believes that the U.S. is unjustified in banning investments in the companies.
"The U.S. government keeps finding creative ways to continue targeting Hikvision simply because we happen to be headquartered in China," the company said.
Biden administration officials said the ban will only apply to subsidiaries of the listed companies if they are also listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. The amendment also clarifies that the ban will not apply to companies whose names closely match those on the list.
