Chinese publisher Tencent is the largest video game company in the world. Their owned subsidiaries include League of Legends developers Riot Games, Path of Exile Development Grinding Games Games and UK Outfit Sumo Group. They own shares in everything, from Epic Games through Ubisoft to the group to restart Silent Hill 2. Are you a game developer? The odds are at least one percent of your body belongs to Tencent. Maybe one of your toes.
And now it turns out that Tencent is also a type of military operator. Or at least, that’s what the US Department of Defense will make us believe that they only randomly add a company to a list of notorious Chinese military companies, along with Lithium-ion Catl battery manufacturer. This is likely to cause difficulties for Tencent in business in the United States, but Tencent says it is all based on “misunderstandings”.
According to Bloomberg’s report, the list of US military companies originated from an executive command issued by President Donald Trump was recently elected by 2020, sought to prevent US companies from investing in relations with the Chinese military.
Officially called Section 1260H, the list is updated every year and is currently running to 134 companies, including Huawei phone manufacturer. It does not mean that companies in the question are immediately banned from business with the United States, but that puts pressure on the US Department of Finance to sanction them. This can scare investors: BBC reports that Tencent has found that stock prices fall in Hong Kong since today, Tuesday, January 7.
Tencent, naturally, said that the whole thing is an error, and the indication will not have material effects on their activities. “We are not a military company or supplier,” Tencent spokesman Daniel Marti, commented on the BBC. “Unlike sanctions or export control, this list has no impact on our business. However, we will work with the Ministry of Defense to solve any misunderstand.”
I am not a superpower geopolitical scholar, but my understanding is that all this is part of the US effort to accommodate China both economically, and about military applications and connectivity of Chinese companies and technology research organizations. This is a press release of the US Department of Defense since 2022, thinking about it. A excerpt:
“The Ministry is determined to highlight and fight against the Prc military consolidation strategy, support the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by ensuring access to advanced technologies and expertise to be acquired and develop state.”
With the scale of Tencent – they also work in AI and cloud computing and WeChat, one of the largest social media networks – it seems that they have military connection somewhere. But after that, again, many major US technology companies, such as Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft. Many people are the relationship between Biz technology and the world’s armed forces.
All this appears in the context of the news that Tencent is considering the acquisition of Ubisoft with the help of the founding Guillemot family. It also follows the resignation of two EPIC Games director appointed by Tencent, to deal with an investigation by the US Department of Justice on potential anti -monopoly violations.
