The People’s Republic of China recently blocked Meta from acquiring Manus, an AI startup that developed an advanced AI agent capable of completing complex tasks and relocated last summer from China to the more business- and investment-friendly Singapore, apparently with the approval of Chinese regulators.
As Jack Nicastro and Joe Coniglio write in Reason, this is but the most recent instance of China advancing its bid for global techno-economic hegemony by blocking acquisitions by large American technology companies. In 2023, the State Administration for Market Regulation, China's main national antitrust regulator, forced Intel to scuttle its $5.4 billion acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli chipmaker with an office in Shanghai, by delaying merger approval for 18 months.
While it is easy to be frustrated with the Chinese government and its use of merger and acquisition controls to limit the competitive advantage of American tech firms, many policymakers in the West have enabled China's success by weaponizing antitrust and competition laws to kill pro-competitive deals by Big Tech firms.
Read the commentary.
