The US Division of Protection has labeled Tencent, a main investor in a number of huge online game firms, as a Chinese navy firm.
The report from Bloomberg states that Tencent alongside battery maker CATL have been added to a checklist that classifies them as Chinese navy firms. The designation itself doesn’t carry any authorized penalties such as sanctions, however inclusion on the checklist shouldn’t be excellent for firms trying to conduct enterprise in the USA.
As a end result, whereas there is no such thing as a quick affect to what this designation means for Tencent, that is nonetheless a firm that owns Riot Video games, and has heavy investments in a number of different sport firms together with Epic Video games, Larian Studios, and FromSoftware. There are additionally reviews that say Tencent is in negotiations with investing extra into firms like Ubisoft.
Tencent has advised Bloomberg that this designation is “clearly a mistake” and each Tencent and CATL can be pushing to take away their names from the Division of Protection’s checklist. Beforehand, Chinese cellphone producer Xiaomi was added to the identical checklist in 2021 after which faraway from it a few months later.
In a assertion to The Verge, Tencent’s Danny Marti says that the designation “has no affect on our enterprise” however will nonetheless be working to take away themselves from the classification.
In a one pager revealed by the Division of Protection, the US authorities cites Military Civil Fusion, or MCF, a startegy it says the Chinese authorities makes use of to mix civilian analysis and industrial success to additional advance its navy, therefore why the US authorities has a checklist of Chinese firms it suspects as working with the Chinese navy, one thing firms like Tencent and Xiaomi deny.
Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Options Editor. You may attain him @lawoftd.