Stacy Boit,

The US has added several major firms from China including technology giant Alibaba and electric car maker BYD to a list of companies said to have ties with the Chinese military.

The Department of Defense’s list aims to alert American organisations to the risks of doing business with the Chinese firms, but their inclusion does not mean they are immediately sanctioned.

The Chinese embassy in the US told the BBC that the list is “discriminatory” and said firms from China have strictly complied with the laws abroad.

The BBC has contacted BYD and several firms on the list for comment. Alibaba’s representatives said separately that there is no basis for their companies to have been listed.

The list, known as Section 1260H, was announced in a post on the Federal Register on Monday and names some of China’s top companies – a move that risks aggravating tensions between Washington and Beijing.

The Pentagon list includes more than 80 “Chinese military companies” that are directly or indirectly engaged in providing commercial services for the US.

Some of these businesses compete directly with major American companies in industries such as electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.

For instance BYD, which does not export its cars to the US, surpassed Tesla earlier this year to become the world’s top EV maker.

Beijing will likely view the move as a “form of economic containment”, said policy analyst Stefanie Kam from the Nanyang Technological University.

China could possibly retaliate with tit-for-tat sanctions, add American firms to a list of its own or respond with some form of diplomatic pushback, Kam said.