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| The validity of this article as a news story is, as written, disputed. Wikinews does not publish reports on events that are not sufficiently recent. For synthesis, new details must have come to light within the past two or three days, and the news event itself must have happened within a week. Unless sources can be found and a news event chosen to bring this article into compliance with those requirements, the article may be deleted.
If any new details from the last two to three days are newsworthy in their own right then an article could be written with these updates as the actual news event. Exceptions are possible where original reporting adds significant new and newsworthy information to the article.
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Thursday, June 3, 2021
United States president Joe Biden signed an executive order today expanding the scope of a ban on US investment in Chinese companies issued by his predecessor Donald Trump from 48 to 59 firms the government says have links to the Chinese military or produce or sell surveillance companies used to assist in the country’s repression of political dissidents and religious minorities.
The executive order, entitled the “Executive Order on Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments that Finance Certain Companies of the People’s Republic of China” will take effect August 2. It is an amendment of an executive order issued November 12, 2020 by then-president Trump. It prohibits all US persons from investing in, or buying new securities with companies that conflict with “the Biden Administration’s commitment to protecting core U.S. national security interests and democratic values”, according to a White House fact sheet. Those with investments currently will have a year to divest, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Companies banned are those considered “to operate or have operated in the defense and related materiel sector or the surveillance technology sector of the economy of the PRC [People’s Republic of China]”. The list is rolling, and can be updated “as appropriate”.
The executive order of November 12, entitled the “Executive Order on Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments that Finance Communist Chinese Military Companies”, declared a national emergency and prohibited any transaction in publicly traded securities or its derivatives listed as a “Communist Chinese military company” by the Department of Defense. Biden, in a letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and President of the Senate Kamala Harris, wrote “additional steps are necessary to address the national emergency […] including the threat posed by the military-industrial complex of the PRC and its involvement in military, intelligence, and security research and development programs, and weapons and related equipment production”.
He added “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” are “unusual and extraordinary threats” for “the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”.
According to SCMP, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said “the move severely disrupted normal market rules and order”, asking the US to “correct its mistakes”. Wang added “China will take necessary measures to firmly safeguard Chinese enterprises‘ legitimate and lawful rights and interests”.
According to NBC News, in the first face-to-face meeting between US and Chinese officials on March 18, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Chinese actions against ethnic minorities in the province of Xinjiang, cyber attacks on the US and “economic coercion […] threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability”. In a May 2 interview with 60 Minutes, Blinken accused China of “acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad” over the last few years.