12.02.2023
According to people familiar with the matter, the Biden administration plans to issue a decree to prohibit American companies from investing in some Chinese technology companies. Relevant plans will come into effect after consulting the economic circles. Observers speculate that Washington may take a series of punitive measures against China after the “balloon incident”.
(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) According to Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, the U.S. government plans to ban U.S. companies from investing in some Chinese technology companies on the grounds of security concerns, and implement stricter monitoring of other investments.
The ban is expected to apply to some investments related to chip production, two people familiar with the matter said. The ban could follow sweeping new U.S. restrictions imposed last October on exports to China of U.S. artificial intelligence chips, chipmaking equipment and supercomputers, among other areas.
It is reported that the Biden administration plans to solicit opinions from relevant industries on the new regulations in the above-mentioned plan before putting them into practice. Specific plans will be announced in the coming months.
The White House declined to comment on the Reuters report.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in the United States responded in a statement: “No restriction or suppression can stop the pace of China’s technological development.” It will cause the United States to miss development opportunities. Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also said that the Americans’ practice of setting up obstacles to Sino-US scientific and technological exchanges “will backfire on the US itself” and damage the international community’s confidence in US investment.
Recently, the tension between China and the United States has been further intensified because of the “balloon incident”. Observers speculate that Washington may take more punitive measures in the short term, which may involve foreign investment.
In addition to banning U.S. companies from investing in certain Chinese technology companies, another possible measure in Washington is to require investors to notify the government before executing related investment transactions, although there is no risk of being rejected.
Although the details of the relevant decree may still be revised, this escalating and increasing action shows that the Biden administration is trying to control US investment in China in a quick way. After the introduction of restrictive measures against China in October last year, it angered US allies and domestic companies.
American companies such as Intel have invested heavily in China’s artificial intelligence field
Reuters pointed out that this also shows that the US government is eager to obtain more information about US investment in Chinese technology start-ups. A report released earlier this month by a think tank at Georgetown University in the United States showed that between 2015 and 2021, American investors, including Intel and Qualcomm, accounted for nearly half of the total investment in Chinese artificial intelligence technology companies. One-fifth of the share, the total transaction value is about 40.2 billion US dollars.
It is reported that the above-mentioned ban was originally planned to be issued in the last quarter of last year, and the reason for the delay was to avoid angering Beijing before US Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to China. However, Blinken’s visit to China was also put on hold after the United States discovered that Chinese balloons had entered its airspace.
(Reuters, etc.)
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Economic aspect |
21.10.2022