US tweaks requirement for investors to dump Chinese tech stocks

The United States last week quietly eased its ban on investors holding stock in, or otherwise profiting from, Chinese companies that are felt to have ties to China's military. The ban was first imposed by president Donald Trump with a 2020 executive order that forbade US-based individuals or entities owning shares in private …

[martinusher]

Old old, song -- surely we need somthing new?

There are innumerable companies in the US that "have ties to the military", its just a fact of life, so the constant banging of the drum about 'companies that have ties to the Chinese military' is getting a bit lame. Our government has to do this because its only by using some kind of National Security wormhole that they can have a hope of ducking the investor backlash (and lawsuits).

Americans on the whole don't like to be continually told what to do. They also don't like being taken for a ride. Either we're at war with China or we're not -- or, to use the vernacular, 'crap or get off the pot'.

(I grumble about this sort of thing a lot because it seems that (increasingly) meaningless gestures are our only growth industry. If we spent as much energy -- and money -- actually competing with them then I'd be being it 100%. But what we're setting ourselves up for is lose/lose.)

[Kabukiwookie]

Re: Old old, song -- surely we need somthing new?

The 'West' is 'lead' by a demented idiot and his cackling token side-kick.

This reflects both the moral, economic and intellectual state of most countries that would call themselves part of the 'West'.

Other more lean and more efficiently lead countries are eating our lunch and we (I consider myself part of the 'West') seem to hang on to hubris while clinging on to an era of prosperity that is now gone.

Sadly the 'West' is itself responsible for this downfall due to this hubris, along with greed and globalisation where the 'West' has literally sold the rope with which it will be hanged.

[DS999]

Re: Old old, song -- surely we need somthing new?

Actually the demented idiot failed to win a second term in the 2020 election.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Old old, song -- surely we need somthing new?

Publicly traded US companies with "ties" to the US military are open about it. Their annual reports account for all revenue, even black programs that aerospace firms have. No one is wondering if the various US aerospace companies make fighters, or wonder who makes Stingray cell equipment.

Chinese companies & the Chinese government can't even abide by proper financial accounting and disclosure even for Chinese companies without ties to their military.

[Kabukiwookie]

Re: Old old, song -- surely we need somthing new?

Right. That's why it wasn't a big deal when the Snowden leaks showed that large US tech companies were working hand in hand with the NSA...

Of course 'technically' you'd still be correct, the NSA is not the military, but how is this not a close entanglement of corporate and US goverment interests.

[Arthur the cat]

The Land of the Free

can be awfully authoritarian at times.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: The Land of the Free

But they just realized that forcing people to sell means giving $bn in free shares to foreigners

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'West' is 'lead' by a demented idiot and his cackling token side-kick.

have heard Johnson called many things before, but cackling token sidekick? Hmmm, that is a winner. AND I AM TOTALLY STEALING IT!

Cheers... Ishy

[Kabukiwookie]

Re: The 'West' is 'lead' by a demented idiot and his cackling token side-kick.

I was actually referring to Kamala, but I can see how the cackling part could be applied to Boris... though I would qualify Boris' rants more as waffling....

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen here Baldrick. We'll bring them to their knees by - banking the dividends.