Biden Expands Reach of Trump-Era Ban on Investments in Chinese Defense

by ian

Ian Patrick, FISM News

 

On Thursday, President Biden signed an executive order which prevented any United States person from investing in certain Chinese firms and businesses linked to their nation’s military, surveillance, and defense sectors. Included in the order are 59 specific companies with such ties or links.

The order itself is presented as a way of addressing national security concerns outlined in a previous executive order from Trump’s presidency, which addressed only 30 companies at the time. Biden finds that the threat has extended to include “the military-industrial complex of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its involvement in military, intelligence, and security research and development programs, and weapons and related equipment production under the PRC’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy.”

In addition, I find that the use of Chinese surveillance technology outside the PRC and the development or use of Chinese surveillance technology to facilitate repression or serious human rights abuse constitute unusual and extraordinary threats, which have their source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby expand the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13959 to address those threats.

Individuals in the U.S. are banned from “the purchase or sale of any publicly traded securities, or any publicly traded securities that are derivative of such securities or are designed to provide investment exposure to such securities.” The Secretaries of the Treasury and the State are designated with carrying out the purposes of this order, and may include the Secretary of Defense if deemed necessary.

Some major Chinese firms included on the previous list that were also placed on the updated list include: Aviation Industry Corp of China, China Mobile Communications Group, China National Offshore Oil, Huawei Technologies, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.

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