President Joe Biden arrived to speak at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on Wednesday.Credit...Oliver Contreras for The New York Times
President Biden issued a new executive order on Thursday barring Americans from investing in Chinese firms linked to the country’s military or engaged in selling surveillance technology — both inside and outside of China — used to repress dissent or religious minorities.
The new order, which initially lists 59 Chinese firms, substantially expands an order issued in November by President Donald J. Trump. By rewriting that earlier order to include firms engaged in making and deploying the surveillance technology — used against Muslim minorities like the Uyghurs and dissidents in Hong Kong and in the Chinese diaspora around the globe — it intensifies a commercial and ideological battle between Beijing and Washington, one that Mr. Biden has termed the struggle between “autocracy and democracy.”