The US Department of Defense Claims Tencent Is Giving China Military, Defense Assets

The United States Department of Defense swears that Chinese media supercorp Tencent is secretly providing its country’s military forces with labor, resources, or work otherwise. 

This is a real list published today, called “Notice of Chinese military companies operating in the United States,” which lists Chinese corporations that directly contribute to Chinese military and defense operations. Tencent finds its place alongside a slew of construction and technology companies, including Huawei. 

In an announcement by the corporation, Tencent acknowledged its placement on the list, though essentially calls the US DoD’s bluff. 

“As the Company is neither a Chinese military company nor a military-civil fusion contributor to the Chinese defense industrial base, it believes that its inclusion in the CMC List is a mistake,” it reads. “Unlike other lists maintained by the U.S. Government for sanctions or export control measures, inclusion in the CMC List relates only to U.S. defense procurement, which does not affect the business of the Group.”

In short, Tencent attempts to convey that it’s a civilian-facing corporation, and doesn’t directly contribute any of its work to Chinese defense/military efforts. It also assures stockholders and business partners that the inclusion in the list doesn’t prohibit business in America, which is notable considering they literally own Riot Games, have a stake in Epic Games, and help distribute music for major American record companies, with small stakes in Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.

A bill passed in July 2020 invoked the publication of these notices through a standard annual National Defense Authorization Act in the midst of the Trump administration’s infamous brigade against China early in the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the first “Notice of Chinese military companies operating in the United States” was published in January 2021. 

It’s not entirely actually clear what criteria are being used to put on the list. However, the Supplementary Information section implies that the list we’re seeing are “declassified,” so maybe there’s a classified system and list they’re utilizing. Given the breadth of major military companies, including America’s, a definition like this could be anything from producing tutorial videos on daily affairs to providing cutting-edge spyware technology. 

This begs the question: Does the Department of Defense know better than us, or is it just the usual American nagging of perceived enemies abroad? Are your League of Legends and Path of Exile 2 purchases fueling cyber and military warfare, or is this a lot of hot air? It’s hard to know for sure without more disclosure from the USA’s government.