US NEWS
Business
Trump announces probe of Chinese companies listed in US
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| US President Donald Trump said his administration would be looking into the practices of Chinese comapnies listed on US exchanges, of which there are around 156 (AFP Photo/MANDEL NGAN) |
US President Donald Trump on Friday ordered a probe into the actions of Chinese companies listed on American financial markets as tensions flared anew between the world's two biggest economies.
The announcement followed Beijing's move to implement a new security law on semi-autonomous Hong Kong that critics say would stifle freedom, as well as with Trump's claims that China obfuscated the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 100,000 people in the United States.
"I'm instructing my presidential working group on financial markets to study the differing practices of Chinese companies listed on the US financial markets with the goal of protecting American investors," Trump said, without providing details on what steps his administration might take.
"Investment firms should not be subjecting clients to the hidden and undue risks associated with financing Chinese companies that do not play by the same rules. Americans are entitled to fairness and transparency," he added.
As of February 2019, 156 Chinese companies with a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion were listed on US markets, at least 11 of which were state-owned, according to the Congressionally-mandated US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Among the largest were e-commerce giant Alibaba, China's largest oil producer PetroChina and Sinopec, the world's largest oil refiner.
Starbucks competitor Luckin Coffee debuted on Nasdaq last year with a market value of about $4 billion, but was asked to de-listed earlier this month after a massive fraud scandal.
The announcement of the review came as Trump said he would be suspending the entry of certain Chinese citizens and reviewing US relations with Hong Kong, which saw seven months of huge and sometimes-violent pro-democracy protests last year.
World
Trump orders his administration to begin eliminating Hong Kong privileges
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tells-administration-begin-process-191203438.html
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| U.S. President Trump holds news conference on China at the White House in Washington |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was directing his administration to begin the process of eliminating special treatment for Hong Kong, in response to China's plans to impose new security legislation in the territory.
Trump made the announcement at a White House news conference, saying China had broken its word over Hong Kong's autonomy. He said its move against Hong Kong was a tragedy for the people of Hong Kong, China and the world.
"We will take action to revoke Hong Kong's preferential treatment," he said, adding that the United States would also impose sanctions on individuals seen as responsible for smothering Hong Kong's autonomy.
Trump's move follows Chinese plans to impose new national security legislation on the former British colony. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the territory no longer warrants special treatment under U.S. law that has enabled it to remain a global financial center.
Trump said he was directing his administration to begin the process of eliminating policy agreements on Hong Kong, ranging from extradition treatment to export controls.
He said he would also issue a proclamation on Friday to better safeguard vital university research by suspending the entry of foreign nationals from China identified as potential security risks.
Sources, including a current U.S. official, told Reuters on Thursday that the latter move, which had been expected, could impact 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese graduate students.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Franklin Paul and Rosalba O'Brien)
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Politics
Trump Cuts US Ties to World Health Organization, Ends Briefing Without Taking Questions
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-severs-us-ties-world-200434255.html
President Donald Trump announced on Friday he was severing the United States’ relationship with the World Health Organization, claiming China had “total control” over the organization and pressured the body to “mislead the world” about the COVID-19 pandemic. He then left the scheduled press conference without answering any questions.
Trump also said the U.S. would be revoking Hong Kong’s special trade and customs treatment and would be suspending the entry of Chinese citizens who were identified as “potential security risks.” The president did not detail what those “potential security risks” were or how they would be determined, and reporters did not have the opportunity to ask for clarification given that Trump left the podium abruptly after his statement.
Trump’s announcement — and subsequent departure from the White House’s Rose Garden — comes two days after the U.S. surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 deaths and a day after he tweeted about “shooting” protesters in Minneapolis, writing, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” (The tweet received a content warning from Twitter for “glorifying violence.”)
Also Read: Twitter Hits Trump With Content Warning for Tweet 'Glorifying Violence'
The president did not comment at all on the protests in Minneapolis or the murder charge filed against the former police officer who choked George Floyd with his knee for several minutes, causing his death.
Read original story Trump Cuts US Ties to World Health Organization, Ends Briefing Without Taking Questions At TheWrap
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World
U.S. planning to cancel visas of Chinese graduate students: sources
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-planning-cancel-visas-chinese-140528121.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is planning to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students believed by President Donald Trump's administration to have links with China's military, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
The move, first reported by the New York Times, could impact 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese students and could be announced as early as this week, according to the sources, including a current U.S. official and another individual who was briefed on the administration's internal discussions.
The United States and China are at loggerheads over China's decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists in the city and Western countries fear could erode its freedoms and jeopardize its role as a global financial hub.
Chinese students who are in the United States will have their visas canceled and will be expelled, the source briefed on the plans said, while those already outside the United States will not be allowed to return.
The main purpose of the action is to clamp down on spying and intellectual property theft that some Chinese nationals are suspected of engaging in on U.S. university and college campuses, the source said, adding that the administration expected significant push back from those institutions because of their financial interests in Chinese student enrollment.
Some 360,000 Chinese nationals who attend U.S. schools annually generate economic activity of about $14 billion, largely from tuitions and other fees.
The decision on the visas is likely to further sour ties between the world's top two economies - also at odds over the coronavirus pandemic and trade.
Deliberations on the visa move have been in the works for months, the sources said. While not directly related to the tensions over Hong Kong, the timing appears to be part of "an overall pressure campaign" against China that has intensified in recent months, the source familiar with discussions said.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress China had undermined Hong Kong's autonomy so fundamentally he could not support recertifying the city's special pre-1997 trading status established when it was a British colony.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Will Dunham)
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Associated Press
Chinese grad students may be next hit by US-China tensions
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| President Donald Trump speaks as he receives a briefing on the 2020 hurricane season in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) |
President Donald Trump said he would make an announcement about China on Friday, and administration officials said he is considering a months-old proposal to revoke the visas of students affiliated with educational institutions in China linked to the People’s Liberation Army or Chinese intelligence.
Trump is also weighing targeted travel and financial sanctions against Chinese officials for actions in Hong Kong, according to the officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We’ll be announcing what we’re doing tomorrow with respect to China and we are not happy with China," Trump told reporters at an unrelated event Thursday, referring mainly to COVID-19. "We are not happy with what’s happened. All over the world people are suffering, 186 countries. All over the world they’re suffering. We’re not happy.”
Although the student expulsions aren't directly related to Hong Kong and China’s move to assert full control over the former British territory, potential sanctions against officials involved in that effort would be a result of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's determination that Hong Kong can no longer be considered autonomous from mainland China.
Pompeo notified Congress on Wednesday that Hong Kong is no longer deserving of the preferential trade and commercial status it has enjoyed from the U.S. since it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997. Under a joint Sino-British agreement on the handover, Hong Kong was to be governed differently than the mainland for 50 years under a “one country, two systems” policy.
Pompeo's determination opened the door to possible sanctions and the loss of special perks Hong Kong has received from the United States. But neither Pompeo nor other officials were able Wednesday to describe what action the administration might take, an uncertainty related to the impact that such sanctions would have on U.S. companies that operate in Hong Kong and the city's position as Asia's major financial hub. Trump's comments sparked a drop in U.S. financial markets.
Serious consideration of the visa revocation proposal, first reported by The New York Times, has faced opposition from U.S. universities and scientific organizations who depend on tuition fees paid by Chinese students to offset other costs. In addition, those institutions fear possible reciprocal action from Beijing that could limit their students' and educators' access to China.
In a nod to those concerns, the officials said any restrictions would be narrowly tailored to affect only students who present a significant risk of engaging in espionage or intellectual property theft. The officials could not say how many people could ultimately be expelled, although they said it would be only a fraction of the Chinese students in the country.
Still, the possibility that the proposal may be implemented has drawn concerns from educators.
“We’re very worried about how broadly this will be applied, and we’re concerned it could send a message that we no longer welcome talented students and scholars from around the globe," said Sarah Spreitzer, director of government relations at the American Council on Education.
“We don’t have a lot of details about how they are going to define ties to Chinese universities, what type of universities are they going to target, what would constitute a university having ties to the Chinese military," she said. If the situation were reversed and another nation imposed limits on students from U.S. universities that receive Defense Department funding, she noted it would affect a wide range of schools.
The U.S. hosted 133,396 graduate students from China in the 2018-19 academic year, and they made up 36.1% of all international graduate students, according to the Institute of International Education. Overall, there were 369,548 students from China, accounting for 33.7% of international students who contributed nearly $15 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018.
The proposal to revoke the visas is not directly related to the dispute over Hong Kong, nor is it tied to U.S. criticism of China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Rather, it is connected to various elements of trade and human rights issues that have seen U.S. officials complain about Chinese industrial espionage and spying and harassment of dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities.
But the timing of a potential announcement could come at a time of increasingly heated rhetoric about the imposition of national security laws on Hong Hong in violation of the Sino-British accord.
The proposal first began to be discussed last year when the administration moved to require Chinese diplomats based in the United States to report their domestic U.S. travel and meetings with American scientists and academics. At the time, U.S. officials said it was a reciprocal measure to match restrictions that American diplomats face in China.
Those limits were followed by a requirement that Chinese state-run media in the U.S. register as “foreign diplomatic missions” and report their property holdings and employee rosters to the government. That was, in turn, followed by the limiting of the number of visas for Chinese journalists allowed to work in the United States.
China retaliated for the visa limitations by expelling several reporters from U.S. media outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times.
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AP Education Writer Collin Binkley in Boston contributed to this report.
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