The most overlooked aspect of Trade war between US and China. It is not about Trade deficit, honestly Americans would not care if the money Chinese make out of trade surplus is invested in US treasuries, but Chinese money actually started going into US IPR and US technology companies and this article from Evergreen takes a deep dive into this process which started in 2014 and set alarm bells ringing
Most coverage of the mounting US-China strategic tensions has focused on tariff threats. Equally significant are moves by the US to choke off Chinese investments in the US technology sector. These moves are part of a strategy to ensure that China can’t catch up to the US in critical technology fields by buying, or buying into, cutting-edge American firms.
Alarm bells began ringing in 2014, when Chinese investors started to surge into venture-capital funding rounds in Silicon Valley. In 2016 the total annual Chinese direct investment of all kinds in the US tripled to US$46bn. The targets of Chinese acquirers were varied, but a good chunk of that money went into technology firms. Some observers believe the wave of spending was prompted by a mandate under Beijing’s Made in China 2025 industrial policy for Chinese firms to boost their technological capacity through foreign acquisitions.
The first response to this wave was an increase in the number of China-funded deals blocked by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the interagency government panel that vets inbound direct investments for national security concerns. Two new laws enacted this month have greatly strengthened the ability of the US government to restrict incoming investments from China or any other country. Their key feature is expanding the remit of CFIUS and the export-control agency to block deals, not just on narrow defense-related grounds as in the past, but to protect American control of a wide range of technologies.
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https://blog.evergreengavekal.com/clogging-chinas-cash-pipeline-to-silicon-valley/