China Slams Biden for “Blatant Economic Coercion and Bullying” After US Imposes Investment Limits
China lashed out at Joe Biden’s long-awaited executive order that limits U.S. investment in technology but stopped short of issuing immediate countermeasures.
The Chinese commerce and foreign affairs ministries issued strong responses on Thursday, just hours after Biden signed an executive order to begin the process of restricting high-tech U.S.-based investments going toward China in the areas of artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and semiconductors and targeting “countries of concern” on the basis of national security.
“China is strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposed to the U.S.’s insistence on introducing restrictions on investment in China,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, according to a CNBC translation. “This is blatant economic coercion and technological bullying.”
The Chinese Commerce Ministry called upon the U.S. to “respect the market economy and the principles of fair competition” and to “refrain from artificially hindering global trade and creating obstacles that impede the recovery in the global economy.”
“The message is quite clear,” Eswar Prasad, a professor in international trade at Cornell University, told CNBC Thursday.
“Washington wants to use the national security imperative as a way of trying to limit the transfers of technology and investments related to technology to China, because there’s not just a national security angle, but also quite frankly, a commercial angle,” he added.
Late on Wednesday, Biden signed off on the executive order that limits U.S. investment and expertise in semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum computing and certain artificial intelligence capabilities in China, Hong Kong and Macao.
