The largely symbolic move is in response to the Biden administration’s latest arms sales to Taiwan, the island democracy that China considers its own.

Some firewalls targeted in the US were protecting critical infrastructure companies, the US Treasury Department says.

China on Thursday sanctioned 13 U.S. defense firms over arms sales to the self-governing island nation of Taiwan. The companies targeted by China are smaller defense tech firms that have worked on

China has imposed sanctions on 13 US military companies in retaliation for Washington’s planned arms sales to Taiwan, a move seen as largely symbolic but which has the potential to disrupt the firms’ supply chains.

The US sanctioned a Chinese company it accused of working for intelligence agencies and charged one of its employees with hacking into the computer systems of thousands of businesses across the globe,

The US government has imposed sanctions on Chinese cybersecurity firm Sichuan Silence Information Technology and one of its employees, Guan Tianfeng, for their alleged involvement in a 2020 global cyberattack that exploited zero day vulnerabilities in firewalls.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned a Chinese cybersecurity firm, Sichuan Silence, and its employee, Guan Tianfeng, for their roles in a 2020 global firewall breach that targeted critical U.S. infrastructure,