Chinese real-estate firm Evergrande denies investing in Faraday Future to secure advanced tech for China
- Source close to Evergrande says the decision to invest in Faraday was done for ‘purely business’ reasons
A Chinese real-estate company cited by the US as having ties to the Chinese Communist Party has denied that a decision to invest in a struggling US start-up was prompted by a desire to acquire advanced technology at the behest of the government.
A person close to Evergrande Real Estate Group said that the investment in Faraday Future was done “purely for business” reasons.
It was not, as a report by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) suggests, an example of a plan by China to obtain advanced technology in new-energy vehicles, a strategic emerging industry that the country has identified for support, the person said.
The deal was done in accordance with US law and approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the agency in charge of reviewing foreign investments in the US, according to the person, who asked not to be named as the matter is sensitive.
Evergrande and its billionaire founder Xu Jiayin found themselves embroiled in the trade war rhetoric between the US and China this week after subsidiary Evergrande Health’s US$2 billion acquisition of a 45 per cent stake in Faraday Future was listed as an “illustrative example” of a Chinese programme of unfair technology transfer and intellectual property theft.