US-China trade war: Biden administration may block investments to high-tech Chinese sectors: Report

The US is expected to develop a more hawkish stance of banning Chinese access to whole swaths of technology

The long-going and growing tensions between the United States and China has prompted the President Joe Biden-led administration to adopt a stricter route against the Asian juggernaut.

The Biden administration is considering imposing a complete ban on US investments in certain high-tech areas of the Chinese economy, as per a report in the Politico quoting House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (Republican - Texas).

This is an important development, because while the administration earlier said it would examine US investments in certain sectors, the possibility of sector-wide prohibitions on American capital flowing into China was not previously reported.

Recalling recent meetings with officials, McCaul said the administration “is talking about a theory where they would stop capital flows into sectors of the economy like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, cyber, 5G, and, of course, advanced semiconductors — all those things.”

The Biden administration had previously blocked the sale of semiconductor technology to China, a step aimed at crippling Beijing’s access to critical technologies that are needed for everything from supercomputing to guiding weapons.

In October, the administration applied expanded restrictions to China's IFLYTEK, Dahua Technology, and Megvii Technology — companies which were added to the US entity list in 2019 over allegations they aided Beijing in the suppression of its Uyghur minority group.

Bloomberg reported in September 2022 that Biden was likely to take separate action against TikTok, the video-sharing app owned by China’s ByteDance.