A mid-level official with the State Department asserted in a little-noticed speech on Wednesday that several huge Chinese tech companies—Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu—were effectively arms of the Chinese government. His comments raised the prospect that the Trump administration, which in May effectively barred Chinese smartphone maker Huawei from doing business with U.S. companies, may be considering taking action against other Chinese tech firms.
In the speech, titled “Huawei and its Siblings, the Chinese Tech Giants,” the official grouped internet firms Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu together with Huawei and ZTE, the two Chinese telecom equipment makers that have been described by the U.S. government as security threats.
