Hesai Back on US List of Firms With Ties to Chinese Military

The Department of Defense (DOD) has relisted lidar maker Hesai Group as a Chinese military company after previously removing it from a list of companies linked to Beijing’s military.

Hesai, whose customers include robotaxi firms such as General Motors’s Cruise and Amazon’s Zoox, was first added to the DOD’s list in January. In May, the company sued the Pentagon over its inclusion.

The DOD was previously due to make a new decision by Oct. 8. According to court documents filed on Oct. 16, the DOD removed Hesai from its blacklist “on the basis of the original listing record” and relisted the company “on a new record based on the latest information available.”

The DOD determined that Hesai “continues to meet the requirements for inclusion” on the list and will issue Federal Register notices of the decision in the coming days, the document said.

Lidar—or light detection and ranging—instruments use pulsed lasers to scan the environment and transmit the data to create highly accurate three-dimensional maps. The technology is used in vehicles and has a wide range of civil and military applications.

Hesai, a world leader in automotive lidar, held 37 percent of the global lidar market in 2023 and 74 percent of the robotic cars market in the same year, according to analyst firm Yole Group.

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In 2021, Congress passed legislation requiring the Pentagon to compile a list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States.

The DOD updated the list in January to include Hesai and around a dozen Chinese tech firms. It didn’t specify the reason for including each company and said the update was “an important continuing effort in highlighting and countering” the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) military-civil fusion strategy.

Hesai filed suit in May challenging the designation, saying “no Chinese governmental or military entity has sought to exert influence or control over the Hesai Group’s management, strategy, or research-and-development operation.”

Hesai said it was majority-owned by shareholders outside China.

According to court documents, the DOD first added Hesai and other companies to the list because “China’s symbiotic relationships with Chinese technology companies present a national security threat.” Government lawyers also said that administrative records show Hesai is “affiliated with” the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The DOD sought to reject Hesai’s argument that the court should adopt a narrow definition of “affiliated with,” which would require Hesai to be “effectively controlled” by MIIT.

The narrower definition was applied in 2021 when Chinese phone maker Xiaomi and big data firm Luokung Technology Corp successfully challenged the DOD’s inclusion of them in its list of Communist Chinese Military Companies.

Lawyers representing Hesai argued that the DOD had failed to show evidence that the company was actually connected to the Chinese military.

They also argued that the MIIT is a regulator and suggested that the DOD could designate any company regulated by the MIIT as a Chinese military company.

Besides tapping into China’s own pool of talent, the department said the CCP is also acquiring foreign technologies via a range of legal and illicit means, including investment, research collaboration, espionage, and theft.

The Epoch Times contacted Hesai for comment but has not received a response by publication time.

Reuters contributed to this report.