Daily US Times: President Joe Biden of the US is set to ban Americans from investing in dozens of Chinese defence and tech firms with alleged military ties.
President Biden’s new executive order will come into effect on 2 August, hitting 59 Chinese firms including telecommunications giant Huawei. The list of the banned firms will be updated on a rolling basis.
The move expands an order previously issued by former President Donald Trump.
China suggested it would retaliate, even before the official announcement.
Under the new order, American investors will be banned from buying or selling publicly-traded securities for other companies, including the China Mobile Limited, China General Nuclear Power Corporation and Costar Group.
One White House official said that it expands the previous list from 31 firms to include surveillance companies and is aimed at ensuring “US persons are not financing the military industrial complex of the People’s Republic of China.”
The official added: “The prohibitions are intentionally targeted and scoped to maximise the impact on the targets while minimising harm to global markets.”
Recently, Huawei said that sanctions imposed on it by the United States in 2019 have had a major impact on its mobile phone business.
The US took action amid claims that the Chinese telecom giant posed a security risk and last July, and the UK said it would exclude the company from building its 5G network.
The new list of companies barred from investments from Americans will update one from the Department of Defense.
The White House said: “We fully expect that in the months ahead… we’ll be adding additional companies to the new executive order’s restrictions.”
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