U.S. REJECTS CHINESE INVESTORS BID TO TAKE OVER CHICAGO STOCK EXCHANGE: Interesting that the stock exchange decision comes the same week that the Director of National Intelligence (and the heads of other American intel agencies) told the Senate they were worried about Chinese cyber warfare and nefarious Chinese penetration of American commercial enterprises and universities.
Note that the U.S. government originally said yes to the stock exchange deal:
The decision comes after more than two years of reviews by officials.
The tie-up was initially approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, pending further approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
But US politicians, including President Trump, have said letting a Chinese firm invest in a US exchange was a bad idea.
Under the proposal, the Chinese-led North America Casin Holdings group would have bought CHX Holdings, which owns the Chicago Stock Exchange.
The exchange, which handles just 0.5% of US stock trades, had said the deal would have provided the exchange with “vital capital”.
That funding would have been used “to boost numerous initiatives designed to benefit the city of Chicago, the US economy and market structure as a whole”.
“Numerous initiatives” in Chicago, huh?…Isn’t Barack Obama from Chicago?…
During last Tuesday’s (February 13) appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the DNI and the heads of the CIA, NSA and FBI said the American public should be “wary” of using Chinese Huawei smartphones.
“We’re deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks,” FBI Director Chris Wray testified, according to CNBC. “That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure. It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage.”
RELATED: My column on the DNI’s testimony which quotes DNI Coats as warning that America’s adversaries are “using cyber and other instruments of power to shape societies and markets…”