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By Aruna Viswanatha and William Mauldin 

Attorney General William Barr took aim Thursday at a range of American companies and industries for what he described as a willingness to accede to authoritarian demands from the Chinese government, as the Trump administration has stepped up its rhetoric and actions countering Beijing's recent activities.

In a speech in Michigan, Mr. Barr criticized the Hollywood entertainment industry as well as tech giants including Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Apple Inc., saying they are "all too willing to collaborate" with the Chinese Communist Party.

In remarks before an audience of members of the business and university communities in Michigan, Mr. Barr warned executives to be careful of pushing policies at the behest of Chinese authorities, which he said could require registration under a U.S. lobbying law.

"America's corporate leaders might not think of themselves as lobbyists, " Mr. Barr said, telling them: "But you should be alert to how you might be used, and how your efforts on behalf of a foreign company or government could implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act."

Many large U.S. companies see much of their future growth coming from China, so it's unclear to what degree warnings from the administration or the risk of bad publicity will change their calculus.

The speech was the latest effort by the administration to take aim at a range of Chinese actions. This week, the Trump administration came out publicly in opposition to China's claims of maritime rights in much of the South China Sea, a move that supports Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries in the region that have claims there. A U.S. guided-missile destroyer on Tuesday sailed by the Spratly Islands, claimed by China and other countries, in a "freedom of navigation" operation.

Late Tuesday, Mr. Trump used a Rose Garden press conference to announce he had signed legislation allowing for sanctions against people and entities linked to Beijing's new security law on Hong Kong. That night the White House released an executive order aimed at phasing out privileges Hong Kong has enjoyed over mainland China in U.S. law.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday the U.S. would decline to issue travel visas to unspecified executives of Chinese technology firms, including Huawei Technologies, that "provide material support to regimes engaging in human rights violations and abuses." Earlier this month, four government departments released a joint memo warning American firms that they risk violating U.S. sanctions or reputational damage if their supply chains or customers are connected with China's Xinjiang region, where academic researchers say more than a million Uighur Muslim minorities have been detained.

In other recent speeches, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and Mr. Trump's national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, have laid out what they view as the threats emanating from China in some of the starkest terms yet.

Americans are "the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history," Mr. Wray said, speaking at the conservative Hudson Institute last week. He also disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours, with nearly 2,500 such cases underway.

"At this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential Covid-19 research," Mr. Wray said.

The Justice Department and the FBI have in particular been focused on China's efforts at American universities to fund scientists to essentially moonlight at Chinese universities and set up research projects parallel to those they are conducting in the U.S. with American government funding including the National Institutes of Health.

Last week, for example, the FBI arrested an Ohio State University rheumatology professor on charges of grant fraud and making false statements for allegedly not disclosing his Chinese government funding to the NIH, which awarded him more than $4 million in funding, according to the criminal complaint filed against him. The professor was arrested in Alaska as he was preparing to board a charter flight to China.

In May, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Arkansas were charged in similar cases.

Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and William Mauldin at william.mauldin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 16, 2020 12:34 ET (16:34 GMT)

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