Cisco,
Apple, McAfee and Citrix have all been dropped from China's official list of
approved products, according to the Reuters news agency.
The change means
the companies' products are no longer on a list used by government departments
to equip offices and data centres.
Instead of the
US tech firms, the approved list now recommends home-grown alternatives
including Huawei and ZTE.
The move is seen
as a way for China to boost its native tech industry.
Router maker
Cisco is one of the biggest losers in the purge. In 2012, the hi-tech firm had
about 60 separate products on the Central Government Procurement Centre's list.
Now, it has none.
Analysis by
Reuters suggests that the number of foreign firms on the list as a whole has
dropped by about a third. Companies making security-related hardware and
software seem to have fared the worst.
Some speculated
that one reason for the cull was ongoing allegations from National Security
Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden about the extent of surveillance that US
had been carrying out.
"The
Snowden incident, it's become a real concern, especially for top leaders,"
Tu Xinquan, associate director of the China Institute of World Trade
Organization Studies, at Beijing's University of International Business and
Economics, told Reuters.
In addition, by
favouring indigenous firms, China could be seeking to bolster the prospects of
its tech sector, he said.
The change comes
soon after China introduced rules governing tech firms selling products to
banks, which, in some cases, required them to hand over the source code for
their products.
US industry and
technology groups have lodged official objections to the rules and have sought
clarification of how they will work.
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