Photo: VCG

The US Commerce Department Friday added five more Chinese companies on its Entity List, the latest move by the US to bar Chinese high-tech companies from buying US components. The department said these companies have supported China's military high-tech research.

This move is counterproductive to a planned meeting between two state leaders in Osaka, Japan. Washington believes that the greater the pressure it exerts, the more benefit it can take, which is totally illogical. 

Ever since it launched a trade war against China, the US has been finding more ways to apply maximum pressure, and is now inflicting pain on itself. Meanwhile, with increasingly stronger countermeasures, China is more determined to refuse to make concessions on matters of principle. Advancing China's technological and economic capabilities is fundamental to its relations with the US. Washington's latest move will undoubtedly reinforce this understanding. 

China aims to safeguard the fair international trade environment and defend its right to develop in an all-round way. China firmly guards its principles but doesn't refuse to make necessary compromises. 

The US doesn't want to see China develop its high technology, which is determined by its strategic need to lead China in technology forever. The US will crack down on China by brutal means even when China's progress precisely conforms to international norms. By adding five more Chinese companies to its blacklist, the US has shown that its attitude won't change.

It doesn't matter if the US wants to use a cutoff of components supply to strengthen its bargaining position or is attempting to make China unconditionally concede in the high-tech area - or both. 

Without high-tech development, China's economic growth will be deeply limited in the long term. Scientific and technological advance is indispensable for China to achieve a better living standard. 

The US is closing its door and cutting off technological exchanges with China. Amid increasingly extreme moves by the US, China has no choice but to strengthen independent research and development and find other directions for opening-up in the fields of science and technology. 

We must be confident that a big economy like China's cannot be locked up, and that the US won't be able to endlessly prolong its suppression, which simultaneously jeopardizes its own interests. A stronger and more innovative China will make the US vacillate.

It is not contradictory for China to engage in talks with the US while fighting against it. China's development will always face pressures, which will be persistent unless China collapses. It is important for China to carry on developing and making breakthroughs, which will change psychology and the balance of power during the China-US strategic stalemate.

The entire Chinese society should reach a high consensus and unite in the face of this strategic challenge the US has put on our path toward achieving national rejuvenation. This is about the fundamental interests for all Chinese people, and will determine if our livelihood, and those of our future generations, will continue to improve. We must not become loose sand under pressures from Washington.