U.S. Weighs Sanctions for Chinese Companies Over Iran Surveillance Buildup

Beijing’s exports of video recorders to Iran more than doubled in 2022 as protests swept the country

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Feb 4th 2023

The U.S. is considering new sanctions on Chinese surveillance companies over sales to Iran’s security forces, officials familiar with the deliberations said, as Iranian authorities increasingly rely on the technology to crack down on protests.

U.S. authorities are in advanced discussions on the sanctions, according to the officials, and have zeroed in on Tiandy Technologies Co., a surveillance-equipment maker based in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin whose products have been sold to units of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a hard-line paramilitary group.

Chinese customs data shows exports of video-recording equipment to Iran jumped last year amid mass protests sparked by the September death of a young woman while in police custody for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Human-rights groups say Iranian police have started using advanced surveillance technology in combination with plainclothes police to counter the protests as demonstrators have grown more nimble in their displays of defiance.

Iran’s security forces are said to be planning to use Chinese tech to detect and punish women who don’t wear the veil.PHOTO: ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/SHUTTERSTOCK

On state television, the police in Tehran showcased the use of networked surveillance cameras to identify, follow and arrest demonstrators. Iran’s security forces are now planning to use Chinese technologies to detect and punish women who don’t wear the veil, according to an Iranian official and an adviser to the IRGC.

The expanding role of Chinese technology companies in helping Iran clamp down on dissent has drawn mounting scrutiny from Washington, where officials have grown alarmed by Beijing’s exports of surveillance tools used in a forced assimilation campaign targeting the Uyghur minority in China’s northwestern region.

Sanctions against Tiandy are being considered by both the State Department and the Treasury, said the officials. If implemented, the move could put the company at risk of being cut off from the American financial system and cripple its ability to conduct business in U.S. dollars.

The State Department declined to comment on the possibility of sanctions against Chinese surveillance companies. The department “will not hesitate to hold persons and entities accountable for supporting human rights violations by [China] and Iran with every tool in our toolbox,” it said in an emailed statement.

The Treasury declined to comment. Tiandy didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Iran’s delegation to the United Nations didn’t return a request for comment.

Tiandy’s surveillance platform—which combines closed-circuit television cameras with facial recognition and other cutting-edge analytical capabilities—has been sold to units of the IRGC and the Basij, another paramilitary group, in towns just outside Tehran, according to the company’s Iranian distributor. Both groups have played a key role in cracking down on street protests.

U.S. surveillance industry research firm IPVM first reported Tiandy’s commercial dealings with Iran at the end of 2021. Iran’s government hasn’t openly acknowledged the purchase of Chinese surveillance equipment, though Iranian lawmakers have said that surveillance cameras installed to monitor traffic would be repurposed to enforce the country’s dress code.