WORST ISLAMOPHOBIC ADMINISTRATION EVER: U.S. Adds Chinese Firms to Blacklist, Citing Repression of Muslim Minorities.

The U.S. added 28 Chinese entities to an export blacklist Monday, citing their role in Beijing’s repression of Muslim minorities in northwest China, just days before high-level trade talks are set to resume in Washington.

The action, which the U.S. said wasn’t related to trade talks, was nonetheless likely to disturb Chinese officials already incensed over what Beijing sees as U.S. support for an increasingly disruptive pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

“I think the Chinese are probably going to see a connection, even if the administration says there isn’t one,” said Matthew Goodman, senior adviser for Asian economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “It’s going to complicate the discussions this week…the timing is going to be awkward for the Chinese.”

Targets of the action include video-surveillance and facial-recognition giants Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Megvii Technology Inc. and SenseTime Group Ltd. The decision by the Commerce Department to add the firms to its “entity list” alongside telecommunications giant Huawei TechnologiesCo.—which was added in May—means suppliers will be barred from providing technology that originates in the U.S. to the Chinese firms without a license.

The newly identified 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 northwest China’s Xinjiang region, the Commerce Department said.

A spokesman said the move was unrelated to trade negotiations.

Hmm.