China announced on Wednesday that it would impose restrictions on drone exports to the United States and place six companies on a blacklist in response to Washington's trade sanctions and additional tariff increases on Chinese goods.
The move came several days after the United States imposed new tariffs on China and 59 other countries as part of a series of trade measures recently adopted by Washington.
A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that the U.S. measures had seriously harmed China's legitimate rights and interests.
The spokesperson added that China had no option but to take the necessary countermeasures, including tightening controls on exports to the United States of drones, their components and key technologies.
The ministry said China's measures also included suspending production-site inspections by Chinese certification bodies, blacklisting U.S. conformity-assessment companies and opening national security investigations into imports of office printers and copiers.
Beijing also imposed sanctions on six American companies, including the biotechnology company Applied DNA Sciences and the research company Stratum Reservoir.
Chinese organizations and citizens were also barred from conducting transactions, cooperation or any other related activities with those companies.
