{"text":[[{"start":0,"text":"US companies and investors would face tighter restrictions on investing in sensitive areas in China from AI and hypersonic weapons to biotech under proposed rules unveiled by the Trump administration."}],[{"start":24,"text":"The Treasury on Thursday published regulations implementing the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act, which Congress passed in 2025 to boost scrutiny of investment in China and other adversaries including Iran and Russia to protect American national security."}],[{"start":40.56,"text":"The proposed regulations would impact investments in advanced chips and AI. They would also target a range of biotech-related compounds and materials and technology such as brain-computer interfaces."}],[{"start":51.96,"text":"The regulations, which will be finalised after a period of public comment, are the latest US effort to make it harder for China to hurt US security using technologies that have civilian and military uses. The Trump administration was required by law to draft the guidelines following the passage of the Coin Act."}],[{"start":69.8,"text":"“The proposed regulations would strengthen the existing Outbound Investment Security Program to prevent our adversaries from using US investment to develop critical technologies that threaten US national security,” said Treasury secretary Scott Bessent. He added that the rules would promote an “open investment environment” by providing clarity to US and foreign investors."}],[{"start":89.8,"text":"The move comes one month after President Donald Trump hosted China’s President Xi Jinping in Washington for a summit in which they agreed to extend the expiration of their trade war truce by two months to January."}],[{"start":101.84,"text":"Craig Singleton, an expert on US-China competition at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the proposed regulations for biotechnology were the most significant element of the package released by Treasury."}],[{"start":113.52,"text":"“Biotech matters to both Wall Street and Main Street,” he said. “It shapes the future of medicines and therapeutics, but some of the same technologies can also strengthen China’s military capabilities or deepen US dependence on Chinese supply chains.”"}],[{"start":114.02,"text":"He added: “Treasury is putting investors on notice that money flowing into parts of China’s biotech sector carries national security consequences and will face much closer scrutiny.”"}],[{"start":114.52,"text":"The regulations said some advanced or sensitive biotechnologies posed an “acute risk” for the proliferation of biological weapons and brain-computer interfaces. They also voiced concerns about technologies with military, intelligence and mass surveillance applications."}],[{"start":125.12,"text":"The Treasury said certain treatments that modify a patient’s cells or genes as well as immunotherapies were prohibited under the proposed regulations."}],[{"start":134.28,"text":"The proposal sets up a lobbying fight between the administration and the US biotech sector, which has increasingly turned to China for early drug development."}],[{"start":143.8,"text":"The Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the biotech industry’s main lobbying group in Washington, raised concerns with the proposal."}],[{"start":151.36,"text":"“We need to ensure that we do not have an overly broad approach that would create uncertainty for innovators and investors, and that may unintentionally risk weakening US biotech competitiveness,” the group said."}],[{"start":163.8,"text":"However, the regulations spare certain deals that US pharmaceutical companies have done in China."}],[{"start":169,"text":"Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb and other US companies have paid billions of dollars to Chinese drugmakers to license their new medicines. These licensing deals avoid the regulations if they were paid in cash without an equity investment, said Will Humphrey, a vice-president at Capstone, a healthcare policy and consulting firm."}],[{"start":194.32,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792748123_9139.mp3"}