This is CBS I on the World.

I'm John Batchel with Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang, my colleague and co-host.

We go to Alan Tonnes, our guide on manufacturing and trade.

China's Ministry of Commerce goes to the report at CBS News, said it would impose measures on 28 U.S. entities and would also prohibit exports of dual-use items to the listed companies starting right away.

This is according to the Global Times. China also sanctioned 10 defense firms over military sales to Taiwan, the self-governing

island that China claims as its own, adding them to China's unreliable entities list.

Alan, a very good day to you.

There's a childlike word that this resembles copycat.

Is that what this is?

Good evening to you.

Happy New Year, John, and happy New Year, Gordon. I have a sense that these new announcements

from China really really tell us much more about China's weakness, the weakness of China's

position in the so-called trade war with the United States

rather than China's strength and China's willingness or determination to retaliate for

proposed Trump tariffs and recent, of course, Biden administration export controls.

And the reason is, first of all, there is almost

no defense trade as such between the United States and China. Certainly, the U.S. China policy

has been full of reckless and incredibly dangerous folly for decades now, accepting the Trump years.

But we've certainly been smart enough not to sell them jet aircraft and things of that nature.

There is more of a concern regarding the dual-use items, that is, mainly electronics components

and other parts that are useful both for military systems and also for civilian systems, like your iPhone, for example.

But it's interesting that even though there are some signs that there are way too many Chinese electronics products in particular in U.S. military systems,

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