(Photo : Getty Images/Alex Wong)
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 02: U.S. President Joe Biden walks toward Marine One for a departure at the Ellipse, south of the White House, June 2, 2021 in Washington, DC. President Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden will spend two nights at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.
The US ban on Chinese firms has been extended to a total of 59. United States President Joe Biden is slated to prohibit Americans from investing in dozens of Chinese tech and defense firms with alleged military connections. The new executive order will be imposed on August 2, affecting 59 firms including communications company Huawei.
Biden added more businesses to a blacklist that has enraged Beijing and resulted in anxiety among investors. An executive order that the President signed on Thursday displays how his administration is continuing a number of the hard-line China policies left by former President Donald Trump.
Investors Can No Longer Buy New Securities in Banned Chinese Companies
Biden added almost a dozen Chinese companies and their subsidiaries to the list. These included China General Nuclear Power Corp., and plastic pipe maker Aerosun Corp.
As imposed by the order, investors could no longer buy new securities in such companies on American markets beginning on August 2. Americans with investments in the firms as of now will have a year to divest, reported South China Morning Post.
The original order was signed by President Donald Trump in November. It applied to 31 Chinese companies that the administration stated allow the modernization and development of China's military and "directly threaten" the security of the United States. Biden's order extended the scope of the prohibition to include 59 companies. He cited the threat of Chinese surveillance technology, reported CNN.
The earlier order was revised to include firms engaged in creating and stationing surveillance technology, which are used against Muslim minorities including the dissidents in Hong Kong and in the Chinese diaspora around the globe, and Uyghurs. It amplifies a commercial and ideological bout between Washington and Beijing, one that Biden has touted the struggle between "autocracy and democracy," reported The New York Times.
According to Biden administration officials, broadening the prohibition to also cover surveillance technology companies would help control firms that facilitate human rights abuses. They also stated they were amending the Trump order in response to Chinese firms setting forth a series of court challenges, which the officials remarked made the original policy "flawed and legally vulnerable."
The Treasury Department will update the aforementioned list on a progressive basis. According to a While House official, it extended the earlier list from 31 companies to include surveillance companies. It is geared towards ensuring US individuals are not financing the military industrial complex of China.
Numerous newly targeted companies are affiliates and subsidiaries of major state-owned companies and other businesses named on the previous blacklist. They involved a clutch of companies associated with two financing affiliates of telecommunications gear-maker Huawei Technologies Co. and the state-owned aerospace company Aviation Industry Corporation of China.
Thursday's declaration is another sign that the President is continuing the hardline approach to China taken by his predecessor. While the Biden administration is evaluating many of Trump's China policies, it has not revoked many existing legislation or numerous orders, including tariffs levied on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese imports.
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