Comment by reissbaker

18 hours ago

I think it's precisely the fact that the founders live in China. The CCP can make them... kick rocks... for the rest of their lives.

Generally speaking this seems bad for Chinese companies, though. They were able to raise capital from the West by running out of "Singapore"; I think basically every investor will have significant pause investing in Chinese-national-owned startups after this, "Singapore-based" or not.

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reissbaker

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kccqzy  18 hours ago

The CCP is known to be very aggressive. Even if the founders acquired Singaporean citizenship (which is way easier for ethnic Chinese people than for other races), the CCP would have taken them hostage if they just set foot in China like for a business trip. They can invent a crime and subject them to a trial with Chinese rules. What can Singapore do? It’s a tiny country that tries to walk a tightrope by simultaneously maintaining good relations with both China and the U.S.

  • r14c  18 hours ago

    They wouldn't have to "invent a crime", circumventing state interests in strategic technology is likely already illegal.

  • pelorat  17 hours ago

    > which is way easier for ethnic Chinese people than for other races

    Nationals. The word you are looking for is nationals.

baq  18 hours ago

> Generally speaking this seems bad for Chinese companies, though.

Anyone who has ever thought otherwise was just naive. This is anything but news. If you’ve had an impression that China capital market is free and western-like, you were right - it was an impression. Always has been.

  • reissbaker  11 hours ago

    Naive or not, plenty of investors believed that running a company out of Singapore would shield them from the aggressively un-free Chinese market controls. Manus is proving them wrong, which will hurt Chinese companies that try to run out of Singapore for access to Western capital markets.