The US government has designated Xiaomi as affiliated with the Chinese military. I know full well that the situation is complicated and there are multiple things going on.
However it’s got to be a hair splitting exercise in a totalitarian state, as keeping onside with your overlords requires a degree of cooperation.
Xiaomi is very competitive in the consumer electronics and in mobile phones. They are top in sales for mobile phones in many countries. There is an economic war with China that Trump started, and Biden continues.
The ban on Xiaomi is more of an attack as part of the economic war. The supposedly military ties due to a silly award were definitely shoehorned into this.
> The ban on Xiaomi is more of an attack as part of the economic war. The supposedly military ties due to a silly award were definitely shoehorned into this.
Xiaomi's ties to the military are not _only_ expressed in some silly award.
Several of their, and their subsidiaries, have found to have servers operating out of IP ranges generally assigned to China's APT teams and so on. (Several times. Like this one: [0]).
It's worth noting that the reason given for adding them to the list of companies is to prevent the Military/Civilian fusion that is taken as normal when doing business with China. It does not stop them operating in the US - only investment.
http://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/02/01/xiaomi-sues-us-to-overtur...