China blasts US humanoid robots ban

The Federal Communications Commission in the US says it will issue a ban on imports of foreign-made humanoid robots and four-legged quadrupeds over cybersecurity and national security risks, in a major escalation of its efforts to keep China's frontier technology out of the American market.

The ban that the FCC announced on Tuesday will cover new models of humanoid robots, quadrupeds - also known as four-legged robot dogs - and foreign-made power inverters.

Its chairman Brendan Carr argued in a statement that the move was meant to "secure America's critical supply chains," citing vulnerabilities that these advanced robots equipped with artificial intelligence pose to the US.

The United States has been working to keep Chinese technology out by weighing a series of restrictions on imports including drones and open-source AI models from the country.

Analysts say its latest measure will deliver a direct hit to China's robotics industry, which is rapidly gaining ground and accounts for about 85% of humanoid deployments globally.

Senior fellow at the New America think tank, Samm Sacks, notes "It's a steady drumbeat of potential flashpoints heading into (the) Trump-Xi summit planned for September."

China's Foreign Ministry blasted the move. Spokesperson Mao Ning said China has consistently opposed the US practice of overstretching the concept of national security to suppress Chinese companies.

Separately, the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing on Wednesday strongly deplores the US Defense Department's announcement to put some Chinese research institutions, including Shanghai's Fudan University, on a sanctions list, blasting it again as an overstretch of the concept of national security.

The ministry stresses the sanction undermines the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries' scientific communities and runs counter to the global trend of international collaboration in technological innovation.

A spokesman urges the US side to cease "baseless smearing" of Chinese research institutions and promptly "correct the mistakes."

{Danni Zhou TVB News}

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