Chairmen Garbarino, Moolenaar, Crawford Lead Letter Asking Pentagon to List Deepseek, Gotion, Unitree, and Wuxi as Chinese Military Companies

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This week, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Andrew R. Garbarino (R-NY) joined House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) in asking the Pentagon to list Deepseek, Gotion, Unitree, Wuxi, and 13 other companies as Chinese military companies. Adding those companies to the Pentagon's 1260H list would make it clear that those companies work with the Chinese military and that Department of Defense should not contract with them.

In the letter, the members write, "We applaud recent actions taken by the Department, including the addition of Tencent to the 1260H list in January, as well as reports that an October 7 letter from Deputy Secretary of War Stephen Feinberg informed the Armed Services Committees that Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD should be added to the list of companies that aid the PRC's military…The firms listed below represent the next logical tranche of military-civil fusion contributors whose designation under Section 1260H would directly support Congress's intent that U.S. taxpayer funds not underwrite PRC military-industrial and internal-security or intelligence capabilities."

Additional cosigners of the letter include: Chairman Rob Wittman, House Armed Services Committee, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee; Chairman Bill Huizenga, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, South and Central Asia Subcommittee; Chairman Dusty Johnson, Committee on Agriculture, Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development Subcommittee; Chairman Darin LaHood, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on NSA and Cyber; and Chairman Andy Ogles, Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.

Read the full letter here.

Background:

The letter asks the Pentagon to list the following companies:

DeepSeek: A senior U.S. State Department official told Reuters that DeepSeek "has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support to China's military and intelligence operations," citing its appearance in more than 150 procurement records for the PLA and other entities in the Chinese defense industrial base as well as its provision of technology services to PLA research institutes. The official also noted that DeepSeek has maintained access to "large volumes" of advanced Nvidia GPUs despite U.S. restrictions and has sought to use shell companies in Southeast Asia to evade export controls.

Gotion High-Tech: In 2016, Gotion High-Tech announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Hefei Gotion High-Tech Power Energy Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with China Aerospace Wanyuan International (Group) Co., Ltd. and the People's Government of Lubei District, Tangshan, to invest in a power-battery project in Tangshan and establish a joint venture with Hefei Gotion holding 51% and Aerospace Wanyuan 49%, focused on power-battery R&D and manufacturing as well as graphene R&D and energy-storage applications in both military and civilian fields. Gotion's leadership has included senior figures with strong ties to the PLA. For example, Fang Jianhua, Gotion's board-level manager from 2010 to 2016, is a former PLA General Staff officer and PLA academy graduate.

Unitree Robotics: During the China-Cambodia "Golden Dragon 2024" exercise, PLA forces publicly fielded a rifle-equipped robot dog developed by Unitree, with state media showing it operating alongside infantry in urban assault drills and soldiers describing it as a "new member" of urban combat units for reconnaissance and strike missions.

Unitree is labeled one of Hangzhou's six flagship "little dragon" enterprises and is based in the Hangzhou High-Tech Zone, explicitly described as a "military-civil fusion" zone. The company receives extensive state backing, including investment from a roughly RMB 140 billion Sci-Tech Fund and support from a RMB 21 billion robotics cluster, and multiple rounds of emergency financial assistance.

WuXi AppTec, WuXi Biologics, and WuXi XDC: WuXi's management committee has included representatives from the PLA's Academy of Military Medical Sciences and the Fourth Military Medical University, and the company has received investment from the Aviation Industry Corporation of China Military-Civic Fusion Selected Hybrid Securities Investment Fund, a military-civil fusion fund explicitly created to support military-production enterprises.

WuXi also operates a genetic testing demonstration center designated by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) alongside the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and has executives serving on national drug-development committees with PLA medical institutes, underscoring its integration into China's military-civil fusion apparatus.

Also listed in the letter are: GenScript Group, Tiandy Technologies, Livox, LeiShen, Robosense, CloudMinds, Hui Si Kaiwu, Xiaomi Corporation, BOE Technology Group, Tianma Microelectronics, Hua Hong Semiconductor, Shennan Circuit Company Limited, and Kingsemi Company Limited.

###