In recent years, the U.S. has added a growing number of Chinese companies, including some leading tech companies, to the U.S. Entity List, which makes it harder for those companies to do business with Americans. The list has been an ongoing source of tension in U.S.-China relations, and this month, China's state-backed Global Times reported that China “is ready to take a series of countermeasures,” including adding American companies such as Apple, Boeing, and Cisco to its own list — an “unreliable entity list.”  It remains to be seen what, exactly, that means, but in this week’s Big Picture, we explain how the American Entity List started, why it matters to U.S.-China relations, and introduce some of the key Chinese companies on the list. Background  Location of entities on the Entity ListData: Code of Federal Regulations (15 C.F.R. Part 744) The Entity List was created in 1997 and was initially intended to address the risk of U.S. exports being dive