China investments in high-tech assets at $20 bn, says US

China has investments in over 600 high-technology assets worth $20 billion in the US, the White House has said, asserting that it is part of the Chinese effort to capture emerging industries that will drive future economic growth.

The White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy (OTMP), in its 20-page report released on Tuesday, alleged that the Chinese government has institutionalised the industrial policy of inducing investment in "encouraged" high-technology sectors using the financial resources and regulatory instruments of the state.

China's government has a multi-billion dollar set of state-backed funds that contribute to technology investment and uses an array of state actors to implement its strategies of acquiring foreign technologies and intellectual property, it said.

Since 2012, China-based investors have invested into "more than 600 high-technology" assets worth close to $20 billion into areas like artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and robotics receiving particular focus.

China's biggest sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, has used a significant fraction of the $800 billion of assets under management for a venture fund focusing on Silicon Valley, said the report, outlining how China's policies threaten the economic and national security of the US.

Given the size of China's economy, the demonstrable extent of its market-distorting policies, and China's stated intent to dominate the industries of the future, China's acts, policies, and practices of economic aggression now targeting the technologies and IP of the world threaten not only the US economy but also the global innovation system as a whole, it said. China has experienced rapid economic growth to become the world's second largest economy while modernising its industrial base and moving up the global value chain.