China warns the U.S. it’s ready to fight back against restrictions on tech investments

China says it’s opposed to proposed American investment restrictions on its tech industry — and that it reserves the right to take action against the measures.

The country’s commerce ministry said Monday that the U.S. should “stop politicising and weaponising economic and trade issues, and lift investment restrictions on China,” according to Reuters.

The Treasury Department on Friday detailed plans to restrict new U.S. investments in Chinese companies developing artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum computers. The proposed rules, titled “Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern,” are part of the Biden administration’s efforts “to prevent the exploitation of U.S. outbound investments” in “countries of concern” which are developing military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled tech that can pose a risk to U.S. national security, according to the Treasury Department. China, Hong Kong and Macau are considered places of concern by the Biden administration.

The proposed rules would prohibit people in the U.S. from investing in certain technology and products that can be considered a threat to national security, and require people in the U.S. to notify the Treasury Department of related investments. The plans are expected to be finalized later this year. The Biden administration first unveiled the investment restrictions on sensitive Chinese tech last August.

U.S. companies are restricted from sending equipment for producing advanced chips to Chinese semiconductor factories as part of an effort to curb its technological and military advancements. American officials have reportedly asked South Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands to restrict exports of memory and advanced logic chip equipment and technology to China.

The Biden administration has tightened export controls on advanced AI chip and chipmaking tool shipments from U.S. firms to China since 2022. In 2019, former President Donald Trump imposed a ban on shipments from U.S. companies to Chinese consumer electronics company Huawei without an export license.