Alibaba Files Lawsuit Against Pentagon Over Blacklist Classification

Alibaba Group filed a lawsuit on Monday contesting the U.S. Department of Defense's classification of the company as a "Chinese military company," describing the designation as arbitrary and lacking proper legal procedures.

The legal complaint, submitted on Monday to the federal court in San Francisco, challenges the Pentagon's decision to include Alibaba on the federal list of military companies.

The lawsuit states that "these decisions lack any basis in fact or law."

On June 8, the United States issued an updated list of Chinese companies it believes support the Chinese military, which included the e-commerce platform Alibaba, the search engine provider Baidu, and the electric vehicle manufacturer BYD.

Under this classification, the Pentagon will be prohibited from entering into new contracts with the listed companies or their subsidiaries under their control starting June 30.

This designation also restricts the company's ability to engage lobbying groups in the United States, which the lawsuit argues violates rights protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Alibaba clarified in its lawsuit that it is a publicly traded company specializing in e-commerce and cloud computing services, with a diverse shareholder base dominated by major American financial institutions including JPMorgan, Citigroup, and BlackRock.

In response to the U.S. blacklist, China imposed export restrictions on Monday targeting 10 American companies operating in the defense and rare earth mining sectors.

Additionally, Alibaba unveiled its artificial intelligence model "Qwen 3.5."