Last week, on June 3, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order (“E.O.”) prohibiting U.S. investments in designated Chinese companies deemed to undermine “the security or democratic values of the United States and [its] allies” (see here). The E.O. is the most recent in a long list of foreign policy actions seeking to put pressure on China using economic tools to curtail China’s surveillance and intelligence activities against the United States. The E.O. amends and supersedes Trump’s Executive Order 13959 (“E.O. 13959”), as amended by Executive Order 13974 (“E.O. 13974”), which similarly prohibited U.S. persons from engaging in certain transactions with companies placed on the Defense Department’s Chinese Communist Military Companies (“CCMC”) list. The E.O. contains a new list, the “Chinese-Military Industrial Companies” (“CMIC”), that replaces the CCMC for purposes of prohibiting certain transactions by U.S. persons. The new CMIC list includes many of the previously-designated companies on the CCMC list, including, for example, Huawei and Hikvision. While previous prohibitions on these companies focused on export restrictions, the U.S. government is tightening the avenues for U.S. companies to safely conduct business with many Chinese behemoths. For U.S. companies that deal regularly with China, it would make sense to think more broadly about those business relationships as companies develop their strategic plans.
Continue Reading President Biden Issues a New…ish Ban on Certain Chinese Investments