China's commerce ministry on Saturday urged the United States to stop expanding restrictions on American investments in China, saying a proposed US rule on sensitive technologies would disrupt trade ties between the two countries, Reuters reported. The ministry's statement is Beijing's formal response to proposals the US Treasury Department issued on Thursday.

Source: Reuters, Oct 24, 2026

The Treasury proposals would update Washington's outbound-investment security programme by adding biotechnology to the restricted sectors and expanding coverage of high-performance computing and hypersonic systems, Reuters reported. The programme already restricts certain US investments involving China in semiconductors, quantum technologies and artificial intelligence.

Source: Reuters, Oct 24, 2026

Beijing's commerce ministry said the proposal “discriminatorily” widened China-related investment restrictions and intensified curbs, Reuters reported. It said China firmly opposed the US proposal and reserved the right to take countermeasures, which it did not specify. Beijing also said the proposal would damage bilateral economic ties and ran counter to the consensus reached by the two countries' presidents, who have met twice in the past six months.

Source: Reuters, Oct 24, 2026

The US Treasury has said the measures, which do not cover only China, are intended to stop US capital from supporting foreign adversaries' development of dual-use strategic technologies that could threaten US national security, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters, Oct 24, 2026

The exchange is the latest round in the long-running technology contest between the world's two largest economies, in which Washington has steadily widened the list of sectors it treats as security-sensitive and Beijing has answered with formal protests and, in past rounds, controls of its own on strategic materials. The Treasury proposal is not yet a final rule, and Beijing did not say on Saturday what form any countermeasures would take.