Biotech curbs: China protests new U.S. investment rules
The U.S. Treasury Department wants to restrict American companies' investments in China, including in biotechnology. Beijing calls it discrimination and threatens countermeasures.
Symbolic image · Photo: 颐园居 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
There is new friction in the trade dispute between the United States and China. The U.S. Treasury Department this week proposed expanding and tightening restrictions on U.S. investment in China. Biotechnology would in future also be among the sensitive technologies in which U.S. capital may flow only to a limited extent into countries Washington considers adversaries, according to Bulgaria's BTA news agency, citing Bloomberg. The administration justifies the move on national security grounds.
China's Commerce Ministry responded with sharp criticism. It said the proposal contradicts the “important consensus” reached by the two countries' presidents and that the measures are discriminatory and a typical example of overstretching the concept of national security. Beijing urged Washington not to politicize trade issues or use them as a weapon. The measures would harm economic cooperation as well as the interests of U.S. companies, it said. Beijing will monitor developments and reserves the right to take “appropriate measures.”
According to Bloomberg, the rule could complicate financial ties at a time when U.S. pharmaceutical companies are increasingly looking to China for new drug compounds.