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U.S. Seeks to Heighten Scrutiny of Foreign Investment in Tech, Infra, Data
- excalibur 7y agoU.S. ignores open barn door, proposes tighter regulation of cattle feed.
- snagglegaggle 7y agoWhich is the open door? I can see a few reasons for taking this approach, the most mundane of which is the federal government actually has clear authority to regulate investment and existing regulatory frameworks to draw from. Trying to regulate technology with ITAR or arms export laws is I think more likely to receive backlash to the point of facing constitutional challenge. The finance laws also probably risk this, but a lot less.
- xurias 7y agoThis is like...two decades too late. China has their fingers in everything now.
- afpx 7y agoLike these personal data collection “ad tech” companies that are staffed by foreign nationals who send the data back to their homelands. Most Americans (not in tech) don’t get that there’s a dossier on everyone.
- afpx 7y agoI guess I’m downvoted because it sounds far-fetched. Well, given that I work for one of these companies, I can say it’s true.
- comicjk 7y agoRepeating it doesn't make it sound more plausible. If you have evidence, please take it to a journalist - this would be an explosive and worthwhile story! In a comments section, though, it's indistinguishable from mere slander against immigrants.
- afpx 7y agoThanks for the feedback. I feel bad that I offended people. I'm sorry; it wasn't my intention to imply all immigrants are problematic. It's only the state-sponsored immigrants, and they're only a tiny, tiny fraction. I don't think most people care, honestly. Plus, as the parent poster said, this has been going on for 10 years. Not much can be done about it now. But, if a journalist does happen to reads this and is interested, post your contact info. I'll reach out.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments to HN and post don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- xurias 7y agoIt's not unsubstantive or flamebait. It's fact. Chinese companies have been throwing a lot of money at Western companies for years, which gives the CCP a crazy amount of influence over wide swaths of the economy. But yeah, let's squabble over what's flamebait while the CCP slowly takes over the world.
- dang 7y agoIf you continue to use HN for nationalistic flamewar we will ban you. That is because of the degrading impact it has on discussion here, and it goes regardless of what country you have a problem with. HN users can, and do, make thoughtful points on such topics from many different viewpoints. "China has their fingers in everything" is not that.
- xurias 7y agoIt's not nationalistic and it's not flaming. Are you a fucking shill or just retarded?
- alecco 7y agoOn one hand, it’s refreshing to see this HN guideline and mods asking to follow it. On the other hand, you’d never, ever see anything like this in mainland China. Quite a conundrum. Note: I’m “western” but far from US.
- jaypeg25 7y agoOdd that this is being posted now. The article is a month and a half old and comments on the proposed regs were due nearly 2 weeks ago. I was actually thinking it's weird that I haven't seen much talk about this here - it's a huge issue, but has barely gotten mainstream discussion.
- mbesto 7y agoThis is a serious f'n problem, and I'm glad it's finally being recognized. When I see PE groups in China outbidding their Western counterparts by absurd multiples, it just reeks of ulterior motives. EDIT: Spelling police got me.
- commandlinefan 7y ago> wreaks of you mean "reeks" (i.e. "smells", usually bad). It might wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, but it can only "reek" of ulterior motives.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tlb 7y agoHigh bids are not strong evidence of ulterior motives. They reflect the fact that many US companies prefer not to take on foreign investors, so those investors have to bid much higher to get the deal.
- mbesto 7y ago> so those investors have to bid much higher to get the deal. And return less money to their fund than they would if they were acquiring companies domestically? Scratches head...
- tlb 7y agoThere is a lot of unwanted money sloshing around. If you’re an oligarch or kleptocrat with billions to invest, you’re gonna have to accept lower returns. One reason that Ivy League endowments get consistently above-market returns is that everyone is comfortable taking their money. EDIT: I sort of conflated foreign and kleptocrat money there, saying they both have to outbid preferred sources. Most foreign money is not from kleptocrats, of course.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
- yonaguska 7y agoI wonder, given the current administration, if this is partly driven by the allegations against the Clinton Foundation concerning the Skolkovo Institute.
- mlindner 7y agoDoes anyone have a non-paywalled variant? I can't view it.
- aphextim 7y agohttps://archive.is/NZLMS https://archive.is/NZLMS A lot of times if you need to get through a paywall try copying the URL into archive.is
- fernyellow 7y agoThere's a video version in the article
- mschuster91 7y agoAbout goddamn time. At least the US is doing something, we Europeans are happy for China financially invading us because we cannot get a functioning funding infrastructure for companies (and startups) done.
- president 7y agoIt's about time that the US start standing up to China's unrestricted warfare [1]. It's amazing that most Americans don't realize that China views the US as an adversary and has been quietly waging a war against the West. Why there are people who welcome the rise of Chinese/CCP hegemony when they are actively looking to crush [2] "Western values" is beyond me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine
- KorematsuFred 7y agoAmericans have tried to impose their values on rest of the world in last 60 years I am not sure why China doing the same is bad at all. At least china has not ruined a dozen countries.
- djohnston 7y agoGive them time, they're only now reaching proper scale.
- deogeo 7y agoIt's bad for the US - that they have sinned does not mean they should be any less worried about someone else having power over them.
- appleshore 7y agoThis perspective is the definition of relativism. You think an authoritarian regime who views human rights as “Western rights” is equal to the US? If you’re arguing liberalism has failed, that’s one thing. But let’s not argue that all things are the same.
- Benjammer 7y agoSo we should wait until they rape and plunder a dozen African nations before we do anything?
- rolltiide 7y ago
- m0zg 7y agoShould also heighten scrutiny on export of advanced lithography, AI, material science, etc, to countries which are known for industrial espionage.
- jbay808 7y agoSeems like you'll want to petition the Dutch, Japanese, and Taiwanese governments to take some kind of action, then.
- m0zg 7y agoThey should consider that too, yes. Taiwan especially. South Korea, too has advanced lithography capabilities, so add it to the list. China doesn't have domestic lithography beyond 28nm IIRC. Which, to be clear, is not a joke either, but it's 1/16th the density of the state of the art.
- m0zg 7y agoOh, look, the Chinese downvote brigade has arrived! Hi, comrades!
- account73466 7y agoMany of my scientific works were plagiarized by Chinese researchers. However, I still don't buy the hate on China that is dominant in media and here on Hacker News. Basically, i) the US wants to forbid other countries to have a chance to win in pure capitalistic games. Thus, it will block strong investors from certain countries but let itself to invest in the same countries. ii) the US (e.g., agencies and private firms) currently controls the entire world via political and electronic backdoors installed everywhere. So it sounds like a bad joke when people claim that China is inventing some surveillance mechanisms like if it is a new one. I believe that we first hand observe how propaganda (here, against China) works. While China does some shitty things, the most precise short description I can come up with is that "the West" wants China to be its slave. I have no doubt this will happen to some extent in the same way it happened to Japan in the 80ies (no slavery, but drastic decay). In 2040 we will be told to hate India. In 2060 it will be replaced by some growing African country.
- swagasaurus-rex 7y agoEverything stated here applies the other way around. i) China wants to forbid other countries to have a chance to win in pure capitalistic games. Thus it will block strong investors from outside but let itself invest in the same countries ii) China (e.g., CPP) currently controls the entire world via electronics equipment sold globally at an undercut price. So it sounds like a bad joke when people claim that U.S.A is inventing some surveillance mechanisms like if it is a new one.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago> i) the US wants to forbid other countries to have a chance to win in pure capitalistic games. Thus, it will block strong investors from certain countries but let itself to invest in the same countries. Don’t you mean China instead of the US? They invest in America what they won’t let America invest in China, especially in tech. China is hardly an open market itself.
- account73466 7y agoChina is the world's second largest country by foreign investment mainly performed via Hong Kong.
- remarkEon 7y agoI'd like to see this scrutiny extended to real estate investment as well - commercial and residential. If CCP has strategies for investing in Tech to make them behave in a way more favorable to their interests, it makes sense that they would have a real estate strategy to capitalize on that as well.