The U.S. unveiled a set of visa and export restrictions targeting Chinese state-owned companies and their executives involved in advancing Beijing’s territorial claims in the contested South China Sea, a new challenge to China involving the strategic waters.
Wednesday’s actions by the State and Commerce departments apply to a range of state-owned enterprises, including units of China Communications Construction Co., a leading contractor for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative to develop infrastructure and trade links across Asia, Africa and beyond.
The U.S. added 24 Chinese companies active in the South China Sea—including five CCCC subsidiaries—to a Commerce Department list that restricts American companies from supplying U.S.-origin technology to them without a license. The State Department said it was rendering ineligible for U.S. visas a group of unspecified executives whom Washington alleges have been involved in malign activities in the South China Sea.
The moves follow a formal U.S. declaration last month that Washington opposes a swath of Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the policy change was part of an effort to uphold international law against what he called a “might makes right” campaign by China to coerce and intimidate its Southeast Asian neighbors into ceding their interests in the region.
Beijing asserts sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, and its claims overlap with those of six governments, including five Southeast Asian countries. Under Mr. Xi, China has built artificial islands on Chinese-controlled features in the area and fortified them with weaponry—a program that has continued despite Mr. Xi’s promise in a 2015 press conference at the White House not to “militarize” the islands.