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Chinese Tech Investors Flee Silicon Valley as Trump Tightens Scrutiny (reuters.com)

New Trump administration policies aimed at curbing China's access to American innovation have all but halted Chinese investment in U.S. technology startups, as both investors and startup founders abandon deals amid scrutiny from Washington. From a report: Chinese venture funding in U.S. startups crested to a record $3 billion last year, according to New York economic research firm Rhodium Group, spurred by a rush of investors and tech companies scrambling to complete deals before a new regulatory regime was approved in August. Since then, Chinese venture funding in U.S. startups has slowed to a trickle, Reuters interviews with more than 35 industry players show. U.S. President Donald Trump signed new legislation expanding the government's ability to block foreign investment in U.S. companies, regardless of the investor's country of origin. But Trump has been particularly vocal about stopping China from getting its hands on strategic U.S. technologies.

The new rules are still being finalized, but tech industry veterans said the fallout has been swift. "Deals involving Chinese companies and Chinese buyers and Chinese investors have virtually stopped," said attorney Nell O'Donnell, who has represented U.S. tech companies in transactions with foreign buyers. Lawyers who spoke to Reuters say they are feverishly rewriting deal terms to help ensure investments get the stamp of approval from Washington. Chinese investors, including big family offices, have walked away from transactions and stopped taking meetings with U.S. startups. Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are eschewing Chinese money, fearful of lengthy government reviews that could sap their resources and momentum in an arena where speed to market is critical.
This comes at a time when Chinese investors have visibly become more active in emerging markets such as India.

19 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Anti-Business by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems very anti-business and it will hurt us. Perhaps not immediately, or much a year from now, but we're eating the seeds of business that could be giant cash crops over the next 5 to ten years (and everyone will blame the stuttering economy at that time on whichever poor fool happens to be president then).

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is bad by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is bad as well.

  3. Good by sproketboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Kick out these fucking spies.

    1. Re:Good by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      It's frightening how quickly the tolerant left froths at the mouth and begins blaming those *dirty foreigners*. It's racist and sinophobic and apparently 100% socially acceptable.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  4. Re: making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is by fortfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe. But shouldn't a business be able to make that decision for itself?

  5. Re: making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    No -- there should be tariffs on Chinese goods and services to account for their poor environmental and human rights practices. After all, pollution doesn't respect borders.

  6. Markets by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The issue here is you are dealing with a country without an open market system. China's economy has market mechanisms for some things, but mostly, it's tightly controlled by the state. The state has direct influence and control over nearly every aspect of the economy. If they decide your business is too important for you to run it, the state will simply take it over and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. China's government doesn't see their economy as thousands of self-regulating parts. They see it as one large machine that they control. The problem is, as with any large entity, that management becomes impossible, and any mistake you made at a high level is amplified a thousand times greater than if a single company made an error.

    You can see how fragile and fundamentally screwed up their economy is by the rescinding of the American ZTE ban. If left in place, the ban would have essentially crushed China's economy, because the expansion of ZTE was built into China's economic plans. Factories were built. Apartments were built for the workers. Capacity expanded at suppliers. Supply chains were set up ahead of time. Everything was prepared. If ZTE failed, a chunk of China's economy would freeze. In a normal market economy ZTE would go out of business and it's competitors would absorb the lost business. That's not what was planned for, though.

    This is whom the investors are representing. China is trying to spend and expand it's way out of it's problems instead of fixing them. It's what Japan tried to do in the 80's, and the result was a crashed economy with a decade of stagnation. We shouldn't be encouraging this type of behavior.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Markets by Archtech · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The issue here is you are dealing with a country without an open market system..

      The interest rate is the price of money, and it is the fundamental price in any free market. No nation whose government (or central bank) controls its interest rates has a free market. The very idea is utterly ridiculous.

      Moreover, the USA has very little in the way of free markets, precisely because it is controlled by capitalists. Capitalists loathe and detest free markets and competition, and always do their level best to eliminate them.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    2. Re:Markets by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So, similar to how some US companies like General Motors and certain financial institutions are too big to fail, and the government makes sure they don't fail.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. Re: making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is by jabuzz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Part but not all of the reason Chinese goods are cheaper is that they don't have to worry about polluting the environment or workers rights (not that the USA is very hot the latter either). As such a tariff on goods manufactured in China to account for this will put the price up and make it more attractive to manufacture elsewhere. The trick is to target the tariff at any manufacturing not to western standards.

  8. Re: making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is by sycodon · · Score: 2

    Depends on...

    1. Is that Business making products that will be used in the US government or US defense.
    2. Will that business seek redress from the US Government after the Chinese steal their intellectual property and then run that business..out of business?

    The Chinese government is a bad actor and they are NOT our friends. Their people may be, but not the government.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  9. Re:More Anti-Trump BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/chinas-crackdown-on-money-fleeing-the-country-looks-like-its-working.html

    http://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/china-new-rules-increase-restrictions-on-overseas-cash-withdrawals/

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2018/02/05/chinas-grip-on-money-outflows-shake-up-malaysia-and-vancouver/#5117228065b1

  10. Re:making stuff in red china with poor IP laws is by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Patent trolls and the East Texas court aren't good for business either. Neither are 70+ year copyright terms.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  11. Re:More Anti-Trump BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just another example of leftist media blaming things on "bad orange man" that have nothing to do with him. Their sheep have no clue what is going on in the rest of the world and just lap it up like flies on shit.

    Fact is China is a hot mess right now. Those that have wealth in China are looking for every possible way to get it out of China ASAP. I would not be surprised if the surge in crypto currencies last year was caused by this, seeing as once the Chinese had bought bitcoin they could have moved it anywhere side stepping the restrictions China has on it's citizens moving wealth out of the country though the banking system.

    About the only investment opportunities the Chinese have on the mainland is in real estate, creating one of the most insane real estate bubbles ever seen, that whole house of cards is on its way to crumbling down. If you thought what happened in the US real estate market in 2008 was bad, just wait till what has been brewing in China pops.

    https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2167731/desperate-chinese-middle-class-take-big-risks-move-money-and-themselves

  12. Hypocrisy by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No -- there should be tariffs on Chinese goods and services to account for their poor environmental and human rights practices.

    Ummm you are aware that the US is the biggest polluter per-capita in the world of any major industrialized country, right? The only reason China exceeds us on some measures in absolute numbers is because they have 4X the number of people. You are aware that our current administration is right this moment doing everything they can to permit companies to pollute their greedy little hearts out right?

    And the US human rights record is nothing stellar either. I point you at Guantanamo Bay, several recent wars of adventure in the Middle East, the percentage of people (esp minorities) the US has behind bars which is higher than China, and the list goes on. If you want to delve into our not distant past there is plenty to choose from there too. Hell, it was in living memory for some of us when black people were subject to Jim Crow laws. The US might be better in some ways than China but our hands are FAR from clean on civil rights.

    After all, pollution doesn't respect borders.

    That's true so the US should stop doing it.

  13. Re:More Anti-Trump BS by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    China is facing an economic meltdown of their own making. The only market that's been "hot" in China has been the real-estate market. But the Chinese are waking up to the realization that it's not ownership, just a 75 year lease. And with the inversion in population growth coming, the number of houses on the market will vastly outstrip the demand. They'll end up with more houses than people - and the value of homes will plummet. Taking with it a significant portion of the Chinese wealth.

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  14. The narrative is all. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ummm you are aware that the US is the biggest polluter per-capita in the world of any major industrialized country, right?

    Didn't know Canada and Australia weren't major industrialized nations.

    First it was most polluting, but the facts eventually entered public perception.
    Now the goalposts have moved to per-capita, because the facts have not yet entered public perception. Even as the US is one of very few countries in to have ever decreased their greenhouse gas output while the strong talking Paris agreement signers steam on ahead with increasing theirs.

    Watch the goalposts shift again to total historical output, then total per-capita historical output.

    The end result is clear: whatever makes the US the big-bad will be treated as the new doubleplusgood truth. Watch sjbe stay at +5 and I stay at 0 or -1. Damn the facts. Damn reality.

  15. Re:More Anti-Trump BS by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

    There are many ways for rich Chinese to move money out. Macau lets them move out their 'winnings'. So they buy a bunch of chips, play for a while, then cash their chips out for foreign currency.

    Bitcoin lets Chinese that don't have relatives on the central committee move their money out. Which the Chinese don't like one bit.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  16. Re:Per capita by bigwheel · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's the CO2 numbers for US, EU, and China, as of 2017: https://www.forbes.com/sites/r...

    Over the past decade, the US and EU reduced their footprint. Meanwhile, China tripled theirs, and now emits more carbon dioxide than the U.S. and EU combined.

    According to eia.gov https://www.eia.gov/todayinene... "Coal accounts for most of China's energy consumption, and coal has maintained an approximate 70% share of Chinese consumption (on a Btu basis) since at least 1980, the starting date for EIA's global coal data. By way of comparison, coal was 18% of U.S. energy use and 28% of global energy use in 2012."