In early March, the ports world specifically and the critical infrastructure and transportation worlds more generally were rocked by the news that CK Hutchison (CHK) had struck a nearly $23 billion deal with a consortium headed by BlackRock. Per the terms of the sale, CKH will sell BlackRock “all of...
Hot Topics for MNCs, Cool Analysis
March 28, 2025
November 16, 2024
The United States (US) recently issued a “Final Rule” to implement President Joseph Biden’s August 2023 Executive Order titled “Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern.” They both target persons from the People’s Republic of China. US persons are forbidden from “certain...
July 17, 2024
Tesla’s top brass, employees, and shareholders must be charged up about the surfeit of good news in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over roughly the past three months after the world’s most famous electric vehicle (EV) firm hit a slew of potholes there. In late April, PRC Premier Li...
March 25, 2024
The United States (U.S.) government (USG) has long wanted to enervate TikTok, which hosts short-form videos and whose owner is China’s ByteDance. USG and subnational efforts have come in the form of Presidential Executive Orders, Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) divestiture orders, proposed legislation in the...
January 5, 2024
The United States (US) has long been protective when it comes to its automotive sector as amply demonstrated by its high pickup truck tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and trade demands. Anxieties about job losses, interest in preserving American manufacturing, desires to defend America’s auto export share, concerns about trade deficits, and...
October 3, 2023
At the September 2023 Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi, the United States (US), India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the European Union (EU), and various European countries such as Germany signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Two central features...
June 13, 2023
The United States (US) has been striving for some time to hinder China’s acquisition of technology-related hardware, software, and intellectual property (IP) through export controls, limits on Chinese investment in American high-tech firms, and even investigations of researchers tied to Chinese universities and think tanks. The goal ostensibly is to...
March 25, 2023
China’s 20th Party Congress in October 2022 and its March 2023 “Two Sessions” revealed the new top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), confirmed China’s top government officials, shed light on the CCP’s current agenda, concerns, and dogmas, promulgated new policies, and presented the government’s work program. On the...
December 28, 2022
The United States (US) Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), part of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has a variety of duties, one of which is to “inspect registered public accounting firms’ audits and quality control systems.” It had been unable to do this, however, in the case of many...
October 11, 2022
The sky for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC/China) is falling per a slew of recent news articles. The evidence? A large percentage of China inward FDI (IFDI) is from Hong Kong and a notable percentage of this money is “round tripping” (i.e., money flowing...
