The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned against United States’ participation in the Chinese economy on Wednesday, saying that any participation is “conditioned” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to the Wall Street Journal.
The commission’s annual report, published by a panel of economic and national security experts, called for the imposition of restrictions on American investments in China and limits on abilities to by U.S.-listed Chinese stocks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“The annual report from the influential U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission called for imposing restrictions on U.S. investment in China and limiting investors’ ability to buy U.S.-listed Chinese stocks.” https://t.co/MDFVWURv27
— HKDC – Hong Kong Democracy Council (@hkdc_us) November 17, 2021
The panel also recommended the congressional authorization of funds for Taiwan to purchase defense articles from the United States, as well as financing “the deployment of cruise and ballistic missiles and other munitions in the Indo-Pacific while increasing funding for surveillance,” Reuters reported. (RELATED: Chinese President Xi Promises ‘Broken Heads And Bloodshed’ If Bullied By Foreign Powers)
They also warned of the growing influence of the Chinese government over its private sector, and the increasing difficulty of distinguishing private sector entities in China from those controlled by its government. “U.S. businesses and investors must recognize that their participation in the Chinese economy is conditioned by the CCP’s policy priorities and subject to its control.”
The council said that economic interdependency between the two countries is especially worrying now because of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ability to “assert unassailable authority” over China’s private sector, according to the WSJ.
Xi is aiming to completely undo China’s advancements towards a more Western capitalism, according to a September report from the Wall Street Journal.
At a Monday virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Joe Biden sought to ease tensions between the United States and the Eastern superpower. “It seems to me our responsibility as leaders of China and the United States is to ensure that our competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended,” Biden told Xi, according to Reuters.
Biden and Xi spoke for over three hours on Monday. “The meeting itself was really about the two leaders discussing ways to manage the competition between the United States and China responsibly, and ways to establish guardrails for that competition. And that was a theme throughout the conversation … The conversation was substantial across a broad range of topics and it was substantive on a lot of different pieces,” a senior administration official said.
The official also dismissed the idea that the meeting was to ease tensions, according to previous reporting.“We want to make sure the competition is responsibly managed, that we have ways to do that. The president’s been quite clear he’s going to engage in that stiff competition,” the official said.