The U.S. government has blacklisted 28 Chinese tech companies for alleged human rights violations.

The companies blacklisted primarily are involved in facial recognition and artificial intelligence. Some of the companies banned include Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., as well as SenseTime Group Ltd., the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startup, Bloomberg reported today.

As with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. earlier this year, the ban prohibits 28 companies from doing business with U.S. companies without being granted a special license.

The new ban is notable because it’s the first time the U.S. government cited human rights as its reasoning. Previously, the justification has been technology and security issues, though per President Donald Trump, subject to trade negotiations.

“These entities have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs and other members of Muslim minority groups in the [Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region]” the Commerce Department said in a federal register notice.

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region

Xinjiang in China’s far west has Muslim terrorists and has been subject to publicity over the Middle Kingdom’s reeducation policies, which some in the west suggest are concentration camps. The Commerce Department is claiming that China’s policies in combating terrorism and extremists is an abuse of human rights.

The Commerce Department didn’t stop there, however, also claiming that the 28 now-banned companies also “pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”

The timing of the bans isn’t a coincidence. The Hill noted that they come on the same day as Chinese and U.S. negotiators commenced preparations for high-level trade negotiations between Beijing and Washington, set to begin Thursday.

Some may argue it’s noble to ban companies for being involved in alleged human rights abuses, but there’s nothing noble about the bans. The real motive behind them is the Trump administration’s attempt to strong-arm China in the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

Photo: jamiejohn/Flickr; image: Wikimedia Commons