Beijing: new Treasury rules amount to ‘decoupling’

Beijing has expressed serious concerns following Washington’s proposal of a set of detailed rules that would restrict and monitor United States investments in China for artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum computing.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry on Monday said that while the US has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention to decouple from China or obstruct the country’s economic development, in fact Washington has insisted on restricting American companies from investing in China and suppressing the normal development of Chinese industries.

“This is a typical generalized national security approach, which goes against the consensus reached by the two heads of state in the meeting in San Francisco,” a spokesperson of the Ministry said, referring the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in the US last November.

“The restrictions will negatively affect the normal economic and trade cooperation between Chinese and US enterprises, undermine the international economic and trade order and disrupt the security and stability of the global industrial and supply chains,” he said.

He added that China opposes the United States’s move and reserves the right to take corresponding measures. He called on the US government to stop politicizing and weaponizing trade issues.

Zhou Mi, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce, said Washington’s investment restrictions will accelerate the decoupling of high technology cooperation between the US and China. He said it will also slow scientific development and technological innovation of the world.

Beijing’s comments came after the US Treasury Department on June 21 issued a notice of proposed rule-making (NPRM) to implement Biden’s