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US weighs countering China and ‘malign actors’ with outbound investment review board
- Option considered as authoritarian regimes accelerate ‘their efforts to appropriate critical technologies’, says deputy commerce secretary
- Comments delivered ahead of second Washington-led Summit for Democracy gathering some 120 world leaders
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US President Joe Biden’s administration confirmed on Tuesday that it was considering the establishment of an outbound investment review board to counter “malign actors” including China, disclosing its possible next step in the American leader’s strategy to blunt Beijing.
Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves made his comments in an address tied to the second Washington-led Summit for Democracy, where some 120 world leaders will gather virtually to advance strategies aimed at pushing back on the influence of authoritarian governments.
“Authoritarian regimes are accelerating their efforts to appropriate critical technologies,” Graves said.
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“We’ve seen this around the world including for military modernisation, for mass surveillance, and other human rights abuses … Look no further than China, which, for example, is using supercomputing capabilities and AI models to monitor track and surveil their own citizens.
“We’re working closely with the private sector to alert companies to the potential risks of transactions with malign actors, and we’re considering outbound investment screening in areas where we may inadvertently further adversaries’ efforts to undermine our economic and national security interests.”
An outbound investment review board – a reverse version of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which examines purchases of US assets by overseas entities – has been pushed by some US lawmakers. The board was part of an earlier version of the Chips and Science Act, which passed last year without its inclusion.
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