Michael Martina and Alexandra Alper
WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The United States withdrew an updated list of Chinese firms allegedly aiding Beijing's military shortly after it was posted on Friday with the addition of some of China's biggest tech companies, including Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab and Baidu .
The document, which was posted for about an hour, also had removed China's top memory chipmakers CXMT and YMTC from the list, drawing fire from China hawks in Washington who fear the growing chipmaking expertise of these companies could help supercharge China's military.
"We would like to remove this notice from public inspection and withdraw the notice from publication in the Federal Register," a Pentagon letter to the Federal Register, the official journal of the U.S. government, said without specifying a reason.
The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Hopefully, (the Pentagon) pulled the document because removing CXMT and YMTC was an error," said Chris McGuire, a former White House National Security Council official under President Joe Biden, who said that would only make sense, given the addition to the list of many other companies critical to the Chinese AI stack, like Alibaba and Baidu.
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