Washington (CNN) The Trump administration will limit sales of US civil nuclear technology to China out of concerns that it is being diverted for military and other unauthorized purposes.

"The United States cannot ignore the national security implications of China's efforts to obtain nuclear technology outside of established processes of US-China civil nuclear cooperation," Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in a statement Thursday.

The decision is the result of a broad government policy review led by the National Security Council and is driven by Beijing's efforts to obtain advanced technology, nuclear material and equipment from US companies.

"The administration concluded that a change in US civil nuclear cooperation with China is necessary to strike an appropriate balance between long-term risks to US national security and economic interests and the impact to the US nuclear industrial base," an administration official told reporters Thursday.

Intellectual property theft

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