Taiwan to probe local unit of China's Inspur added to U.S. blacklist

Taipei, March 26 (CNA) The government will investigate why the Taiwanese subsidiary of Inspur Group, China's leading cloud computing and big data service provider, was added to an export restriction list by the United States, Economics Minister Kuo Jyh-huei (郭智輝) said Wednesday.

The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday added 80 organizations to an "entity list" that U.S. companies are barred from selling goods and services to, on the grounds that they act contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.

More than 50 of the firms were from China, while others were located in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Iran and Taiwan.

Six subsidiaries of Inspur, including its unit in Taiwan, were added to the list for their contributions to Inspur's development of supercomputers for military end use by China, the department said.

Inspur Taiwan, located in New Taipei's Banqiao District, is also known by the names Number Media Ltd., Digital Cloud Ltd., and Inspur Taiwan - R&D Center, the department said.

Asked about the issue on Wednesday, Kuo said the ministry would "quickly investigate" the company's situation, including what U.S. regulations it is accused of violating.

If the company acted illegally, the government will impose penalties, Kuo said.

On the broader issue of export controls, the government has been working with companies to confirm the end user of their products, and ensure that they are not inadvertently violating trade rules, Kuo said.