Sanctioned Chinese Military Giant’s US Business Keeps Growing

The 2011 purchase was reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal entity that can block foreign purchases of US companies and real estate, often on national security grounds. At the time however, US-China relations were less tense.

“There was a different risk tolerance,” said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington and former deputy assistant for foreign investment policy at the Office of the US Trade Representative.

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The US could also impose the most severe set of sanctions, putting AVIC on Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. That would block its assets and ban US persons from doing business with it, but it would be an extreme measure, the Center for a New American Security’s Kilcrease said.

“It’s a very big escalatory step,” she said. “If we are ever in a serious shooting war with China, you want to have that in your back pocket.”

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