China is trying to close a route for Chinese companies to work through Singapore to collaborate with the US, says political analyst Winston Ma, author of The Digital War: How China’s Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace, to Newsweek. By banning Meta from purchasing AI startup Manus, China wants to avoid national security issues on AI and other Chinese innovations, he adds.
Newsweek:
The exit bans send a message—that any AI company founded in China, with business operations still in the country, are likewise reachable by Beijing, Ke Yan, head of Singapore’s DZT Research, told Newsweek.
Beijing’s regulators then treat the deal as a technology export, arguing that the team, model weights, and training data were developed in China, regardless of where the company is legally based.
“Once they were physically in China, Singapore’s corporate domicile became irrelevant,” he said.
Beijing is most concerned on whether strategically sensitive technologies developed in China—and the talent and data behind them—continue to be transferred offshore through corporate restructuring in Singapore, Winston Ma, New York University law school adjunct professor and the author of The Digital War, told Newsweek.
The Chinese authorities have made clear this “Singapore washing” will not automatically insulate any deal from government oversight, Ma stated.
“The real challenge is defining what counts as ‘strategic’ in a fast-moving AI landscape—much like how TikTok’s seemingly goofy videos initially appeared far removed from national security concerns—until their underlying data and algorithmic power came into sharper focus.”
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