US or restricted companies investing in China or considering launching IP investigations

According to foreign media reports, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that given President Trump’s decision to issue a declaration of intellectual property rights to China, the US Department of the Treasury is preparing to limit U.S. investment in China.

Mnuchin told Reuters in an interview: “We are already making choices for Trump to choose.” Trump plans to announce his decision on the actual situation of China’s intellectual property on Thursday.

Trump wants to impose tariffs on Chinese technology products and other goods valued at about 60 billion U.S. dollars to force the Chinese government to make policy adjustments.

The focus of the survey was mainly on the requirements of Chinese partner companies because they were asked to contribute technology to Chinese partners. The survey also used state-owned companies and investment funds to obtain control of US intellectual property through the acquisition of U.S. technology companies.

Limiting investment in Chinese companies and imposing tariffs were proposed by US trade representative Robert Lighthizer at a congressional hearing on Wednesday morning, and this is also seen as one of the ways to punish China.

Mnuchin: "I will not reveal what action we will take. We will also be the lead agency in implementing investment restrictions or investment permits." But Mnuchin also told Reuters that the authorities will be open to dialogue with Chinese government officials. In an attempt to use this to open up China’s economy to U.S. companies and help narrow the U.S. trade deficit.

Mnuchin said: “Our goal is to reduce the trade deficit by selling more products to China instead of reducing the quantity of imported goods. So I think to some extent, we are based on the principle of freedom and fairness and reciprocity. Opening the Chinese market, we will reduce the trade deficit. This is our purpose.” He said that he was very happy that Liu He was elected as vice premier of the State Council and in charge of financial and economic policies and hoped that further negotiations could be held with him in the future.

Mnuchin added that he is very pleased that Prime Minister Li Keqiang hopes to further open the Chinese economy by adopting more ways. He said: "I think that when the president makes a decision, we will go forward based on this decision, but we also have an open mind on what kind of decision China will make in the future." Mnuchin said that with China's high-level government Officials conducting small-scale private dialogues will achieve more effective results.