Biden Order Bans Investment in Dozens of Chinese Defense, Tech Firms (reuters.com) 98
President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Thursday that bans U.S. entities from investing in dozens of Chinese companies with alleged ties to defense or surveillance technology sectors. From a report: The move, which his administration says expands the scope of a legally flawed Trump-era order, drew anger from Beijing. The Treasury Department will enforce and update on a "rolling basis" the new list of about 59 companies, which bars buying or selling publicly traded securities in target companies, and replaces an earlier list from the Department of Defense, senior administration officials told reporters. The order prevents U.S. investment from supporting the Chinese military-industrial complex, as well as military, intelligence, and security research and development programs, Biden said in the order. "In addition, I find that the use of Chinese surveillance technology outside the PRC and the development or use of Chinese surveillance technology to facilitate repression or serious human rights abuse constitute unusual and extraordinary threats," Biden said, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China.
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The premise is simple. Just toss a liberal celebrity into the ring with a couple of Marines, and spend about an hour filming him getting the living shit beat out of him.
Aww did someone lose one too many arguments about the Capitol Insurrection?
Re:"The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't feed the troll. Just ignore the sad losers who don't have anything better to do (within the scope of their feeble abilities) than cut and paste the same dumb comments on article after article.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:1)
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The article didn't even say "(China sucks!)" every time it mentioned China. Reuters must be pro China. That's the only possible conclusion.
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But you forgot to change the Subject.
But I forgot to change the Subject (Score:2)
Whops. [sic]
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Heh. Did the shouty guy on TV give you a new talking point you wanna try out?
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Here's the truth, which you CAN'T HANDLE: there was never any "insurrection" at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. At worst, there was trespassing that occurred. In fact, in some cases the Capitol Police actually invited people inside the Capitol.
Heh. Thank you for accurately describing the memes I saw on my Facebook feed about it.
Is It Wise (Score:5, Funny)
To piss off the folks who make all our stuff?
Re:Is It Wise (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. It's much wiser to do it now, than wait 10 more years and be even more dependent on China.
Re:Is It Wise (Score:5, Insightful)
EXACTLY - Its long PAST time we move to a cold war footing with China.
China means to not just end American hegemony but to replace it with their own. While its impractical and maybe even immoral to expect the USA to remain master of the world forever, we should want to preserve our independence. This is really about our continued ability to live our own cultural values - and for you Democrats the ability to democratically decide what those values are in the future rather than having them be dictated to you by China.
If there is one thing our society needs to unite on its recognition that China does not plan to just passively coexist, they are not expansionist in the way Soviet Communism was but in the soft power we will determine your economic fortunes mercantilist fashion we have been! That makes them a far greater threat than the Soviets EVER WERE and certainly than Putin's Russia is today.
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WTF does this even mean? "but in the soft power we will determine your economic fortunes mercantilist fashion we have been!" Is it English?
Re: Is It Wise (Score:1)
WTF does this even mean?
It means you're a fucking idiot.
Re:Is It Wise (Score:5, Insightful)
we should want to preserve our independence
But that's not what actual Americans want. That's the thing. People act like the American government held a gun to companies' heads and ordered them to move to China. The reality is these companies moved to China because it was cheaper to go there. And because it was cheaper, they could make a bigger profit margin. Additionally, people like buying cheap shit. Heck we did the whole "Made in America" thing back in the 80s and American consumers largely ignored it, because they wanted cheap shit.
I mean it's fine if the Government wants to put a halt on things like China steel dumping. Cool. But the thing is Americans still want cheap shit. One, because we get paid shit and so we don't exactly have disposable income for nice things. Two, because there's this urge to push people into have more quantity over quality. Because companies like it when say, you buy a new phone every year or every other year. But if you had a good quality serviceable device that would last you, well shit that's just un-american!
So okay cool. We enter into such a relationship with China, I'm not against that idea. That's not solving the core issue here. There is a whole mentality in America that ALSO needs to be solved. Otherwise, we stop with China, and it all just moves to some other country over the course of the next ten to twenty years. And then all we're doing is playing wack-a-mole.
This is really about our continued ability to live our own cultural values
And that's the point, our "cultural values" are not conducive currently to your stated end-goal of independence. We have to empower people and that is by giving them the lion's share of profit in this country, not all profit go to a few people. And we need to encourage goods that shine in quality, that it's a good mark of something when we can have things that last five/ten/fifteen/or whatever years and not just trade up every umpteen months.
So cool. Go after China. But if we don't address the issues within at the same time. We're just setting ourselves up for repeat. I mean we can do the China thing right away and get some time on the domestic issues, but it ain't forever. And I am absolutely NOT trying to diminish what you've got there, but this is a very two sides of the coin kind of issue and it's important to at the very least have a footnote somewhere indicating that. Yes, go after China, but yes, we also need to make the common man, the man on top not the crazy ass shit we've got going on currently. Those both need to kind of happen to really ensure we don't find ourselves just doing this same old thing again, but with a different face. I mean it's pretty simple, if people can afford a $1000 washer made in America that'll last them eight to ten years, they'll buy the American washer. But if they can't afford it, they'll buy the cheap shit from overseas that they'll need to replace in two to six years. The everyday man has to have the dollars in their pocket, otherwise, the everyday man is going to be dependent on cheap shit that comes from somewhere else.
You're saying Republicans don't want democracy? (Score:3)
This is really about our continued ability to live our own cultural values - and for you Democrats the ability to democratically decide what those values are in the future rather than having them be dictated to you by China.
Not sure what you're saying there...Democrats have values that align with China?...or that Republicans don't care about democracy?
I KNOW the first is false and I am pretty confident the second is false as well. Republican politicians may do all they can to suppress the votes, but I have faith the average Republican voter wants his or her votes counted correctly. Sure...they want to win, but I have faith the actual voters have limits and don't actually want to do away with Democracy. They love Trump, b
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FUCK YOU! you know perfectly well what I meant that liberal reformers want to change basic operating principles of our country. You also know that conservatives don't agree with you on that; but I am saying even people like you should line up with conservatives on the point of preserving national security, identity and independence because if the PRC has its way YOU won't even be able to advocate for the changes you'd like to see. You lept to the conclusion I think Democrats want to live in China because i
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To piss off the folks who make all our stuff?
I can get by without plastic garbage from Walmart. And global pandemics.
Re: Is It Wise (Score:3, Interesting)
No. There is no police state. Tell me what freedoms have been taken away. Iâ(TM)m watching maskless people right now outdoors, in a very liberal state, because the vaccinations are working, and they are lifting restrictions that were designed to reduce spread of a virus.
I was in Costco and about 30% arenâ(TM)t wearing masks. In a couple weeks it will be completely lifted.
So what has you worked up? What has Biden done exactly?
drew anger from Beijing (Score:2)
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Supply Chain (Score:2)
The problem right now is that there are entire supply chains tied up in China. The good news is that, with COVID-related parts shortages, companies are working to diversify their supply chains away from one source, meaning other countries are going to be brought in. In the US, especially, they are looking at creating supply chains in South America, particularly Brazil. This will make it easer in the future to move away from using China as your entire manufacturing base. However, we aren't quite there yet.
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It's not racist, it's protecting the US.
Oh, and the Chinese are Racist against the Uighurs by the way, putting them in all those concentration camps.
Re: Racist (Score:2)
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Gotcha, so you're OK with the US getting an ass reaming and over-run by foreign powers because they did the same shit that everyone else did 200 yrs ago.
PLEASE move to some other country, like South Africa to gain some perspective. NOW.
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How is it racist when it is about China? There is nothing against Chinese people, but it IS against the Chinese government, and most people should support that.
Racist would be if anyone who tries to move to the USA from China had their children stolen from them and put in cages while the parents are deported.
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Ummmm, no. It may be nationalist, but not automatically racist. If everyone were "white", then it wouldn't be racist if you don't like the white people from another country. It may be xenophobic, but not racist. Racism is when you are against people of a given race or ethnic group, but being against a foreign government(and that includes when those in other countries rightly point out when the government of the USA does horrible things, including inciting revolution in other countries). That doesn
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As long as virus-research is still Ok (Score:1, Informative)
Is virus-research [factcheck.org] — with its obvious military applications — included? (No, no, Dr. Fauci, who previously claimed "the risk is worth it" [nypost.com], didn't kill himself...)
Interestingly, any move by the previous US President against China was denounced as "racist" — even by the same people [aclu.org], who support discrimin [aclu.org]
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The courts, congress, and the rest of the American people did nothing to ensure the contest resulted in a legitimate winner.
By the literal yardstick that was used to measure the 2016 election, the 2020 election was legitimate and produced a legitimate winner. Anyone believing that less than that happened is just sour grapes. And it's seriously sad that people are still that hurt about an election that was like seven-eight months ago. By every literal measure, Biden won, and that some of y'all ain't moving on hurts future chances with middle ground folk. Because if you can't take an "L" gracefully, then there isn't much hope
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Fact check: false
Just because Trump did some racist things because he is a big fat racist doesn't mean everything he did was called racist.
Of course, some of the things he did that were right may have been done with the wrong intentions, but most of us were pointing out that, for example, the actions against Huawei were backed by the intelligence community to the handful of Chinese shills in this community.
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Just because Trump did some racist things because he is a big fat racist doesn't mean everything he did was called racist.
The bar for racism was set so low the previous four years that I don't think the word means a whole lot anymore.
June 4: Free Speech Day (Score:2)
a few years ago, someone here suggested to make June 4 (the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre) Free Speech Day. The executive order comes one day early.
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Fine for the Chinese. Now, when do we in the US get a free speech day?
Re:June 4: Free Speech Day (Score:5, Informative)
Every day. Speech in the US s free, while in China you are locked up for speaking your mind.
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Otherwise China will have a bigger prison population than the US percentage wise.
Confused (Score:2)
Re:Trump? (Score:5, Informative)
Just like how republicans suddenly care about the deficit when a democrat is in office. The deficit soared under Trump.
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It started under Reagan (Score:4, Informative)
The deficit soared under Trump.
The deficit soared under every president since the "war on terror" with no end in sight. Fixed that for you.
Reagan actually stated that trend...it's a major reason why his term was one big party. Prior to him, a deficit was used for an emergency, like a war. I know for a fact Republicans don't care about deficits when they're in power. We saw this with Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Trump. In that same era, Clinton, Obama, and now Biden were elected in the aftermath of recessions cleaning up the mess made by Republican presidents.
I like to remind younger folks....Clinton entered office with a record deficit and left with a record surplus. There were lots of debates between Bush and Gore about what to do with that surplus...hence the famous "lockbox" SNL skit. Bush took that record surplus and left office with a new record deficit....how?...a war on terror and tax cuts for the rich, such as the repeal of estate taxes, ensuring the 1% can pass on their wealth more easily to their shitty progeny.
So if we move the goalposts back 20 years, Clinton left with a budgetary surplus. Was it Newt Gingrich and the Republican congress?...it's a commonly spouted theory, but we've had many Republican congressional majorities and none produced a surplus since.
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I remember when Trump was buddies with Xi Jinping, because Trump loved all the strongman dictators, and all the Republicans were looking around nervously to figure out who would be the first to speak up.
Re:Trump? (Score:5, Informative)
>I remember when Trump did something like this.
I don't. I remember when Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese imports, but because he had no idea how tariffs work or how they would actually fuck over US companies, people got justifiably upset.
This is a ban on investments, which means hedge funds are no longer able to profit from selling us out to Chinese tech firms who may be spying on us/engaging in industrial espionage.
If you don't see how these situations are different, there is no hope for you...
=Smidge=
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Biden hasn't gotten rid of the Trump tariffs, though. The OP isn't entirely wrong, there is quite a bit of sports team mentality in politics, where some people are afraid to criticize their "team".
Not me, I'm more that happy to bitch about whichever party is currently in power; I just had a few more grievances under the Trump administration. As far as I'm concerned, our two-party system consists of the party of suck and the party of suck harder.
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Trivial (Score:2)
Trivial virtue-signalling. The US needs a broad industrial policy that is couple with strategic goals, and which includes a broad assault on Chinese dominance and success in many industries. This order is a joke, as is Biden.
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I am agreement in the virtue signaling and need for a national industrial policy. But I think the post also demonstrates how we as a society get instantly distracted by the my team vs. your team mentality. It's totally true that when one administration does something their opponents will bash it, but when the next administration does the same thing, they get congratulated.
The issues at hand need to be reviewed, thought about, debated, on an individual basis. Yet our congress will s--tcan a good idea jus
Puts the right pressure on Chinese leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly the kind of pressure that needs to be exerted on the CCP. Over the last five years, the CCP's foreign policy, and domestic policy as it regards "foreigners", has moved from horrible to truly disgusting. We need more countries to take a similar stance as the U.S. under Biden.
And since this is a site for nerds, here's a fun exercise: Put some Chinese designed and manufactured bits of networked hardware on their own VLAN. Set up the firewall to allow connections to the outside world, but to log everything. I did this with some mid-range but highly recommended security cameras. They called home way more than I was comfortable with. Worse, the amount of data *sent* was too large to be queries for updates or simple telemetry, and its not like these were cloud cameras. There shouldn't have been any traffic heading outside of our network. Naturally, we configured the firewall to cut them off from the outside world, and only to allow access to/from the server that consumes the security video (a Shinobi server). We eventually replaced the cameras with models from Axis, just to be on the safe side, but still kept the firewall policies in place.
Just imagine what sort of stuff you could sniff with a network-connected device that phoned home for updates every so often. If that device were on a small company's main network with no controls in place, as most are... Now imagine the harm a nation-state could do with control of a network of those devices. Still want to buy a network-enabled device from a no-name company that could be under the thumb of the CCP? Are the cost savings worth it?
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All this will so it's make China redouble efforts to cut the US out of intern international trade and from markets where China has influence. In other words exactly what the US is doing.
The coming war on China (Score:1)
Legendary Australian Journalist John Pilger is waaaay ahead on this and his Documentary "The Coming War on China" will provide insight on exactly what the United States and Allies are up to here.
Re:The coming war on China, coming? (Score:2)
The CCP is the Fentanyl pipeline into the US via the Mexican cartels. The casualties from drug overdoses is surpassing all foreign wars combined.
Add IP theft, hacking into companies & government plus China's belligerence in the South China sea.
War started from West Taiwan years ago.
I'm waiting (Score:1, Offtopic)
I am curious... (Score:2)
...as to what is to be done about existing investments in any of those Chinese firms. Does the Executive Order require entities to not invest in certain Chinese businesses apply retroactively? Are we requiring US "entities" to divest themselves of these Chinese businesses?
If so, does the executive order have a requirement as to WHEN these businesses must be divested? If so, the stock market(s) are going to be interesting. Imagine the IRA's and 401K's that might be affected by a FORCED selloff of some o