Overseas deals a national security matter for China, Xi says
Leading group run by president says it will step up supervision of investment abroad
A top decision-making group headed by President Xi Jinping decided on Monday that Beijing would enhance its monitoring and supervision of overseas investment deals to safeguard China’s economic interests and national security.
The latest order from the Central Leading Group for Comprehensive Reform, one of the many groups Xi has created to centralise decision-making around him, comes at a time the government is getting tough on the country’s big dealmakers, especially private enterprises that have borrowed heavily to finance overseas acquisitions.
It is the first time the top leadership has explicitly linked outbound investment with national security.
“The safety of overseas businesses and outbound investments is an important part of [securing] China’s overseas interests,” the official Xinhua news agency reported, summarising the leading group’s decision.
“We must insist [on] the Communist Party’s leadership over the security of overseas businesses and outbound investments, and we must ... improve statistics and monitoring of such businesses and investments to strengthen supervision,” the summary read.