China urges US to halt expansion of outbound investment curbs

The Chinese commerce ministry requested that the US halt the expansion of outbound investment limits on Saturday, arguing that the proposed policy on sensitive technology threatens to disrupt commerce.

On Thursday, the US Treasury Department issued proposals to revise its foreign-investment screening framework by expanding trade and capital restrictions to the biotechnology industry and scaling capabilities in advanced computing and hypersonic systems.

Beijing’s commerce ministry stated in a statement that the proposal arbitrarily widened China-related investment restrictions and intensified curbs.

Beijing also said the initiative would harm mutual economic relations and conflicted with the agreement established by the two heads of state who have met twice in the past six months, as reported by Reuters.

Furthermore, the US Treasury has said that these measures that do not cover China are intended to stop US capital from supporting foreign adversaries' development of dual-use critical technologies that could threaten US national security.

Nonetheless, the US programme had already restricted US investments in China covering semiconductors, quantum technologies and artificial intelligence respectively.