> After a $75 million fundraising round led by U.S. venture firm Benchmark in May 2025, Manus shut its China offices in July, laying off dozens of employees. It then moved its operations to Singapore.
> It was not immediately clear on what grounds China was seeking the annulment of a deal involving a Singapore-based company and how, if at all, a completed acquisition transaction would be unwound.
> Manus' two co-founders, CEO Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao, were summoned to Beijing for talks with regulators in March and later barred from leaving the country, five sources familiar with the matter said.
Somehow I think there is a real possibility more will happen.
Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes.
I don't claim to know what's going on outside of what's being reported, but I'm reminded of other individuals who have "stepped out of line" (as determined by Beijing) and were also either barred from the country or mysteriously disappeared for weeks or months at a time only to randomly reappear at some point singing a different tune.
That's China, well tbh, Americans won't complain if US govt put sam, dario or musk in the american gulag either. I think that could even be the sales pitch of an election campaign.
No one likes AI, billionaires or especially the tech execs anymore. People on hn can disagree but honestly, the apathy all the people with billions and millions have shown to rest of the folks is staggering and the claims of this tech is going to starve the masses, kill the unborn and orphan the babies, but we must build it because if not us then someone worse is not a sales pitch.
It's easy to see how this will play out. The entrepreneurs will get nothing. Most likely everyone else that has been paid (investors, etc) will keep what they received. Whether Meta or the CCP ends up with the proceeds of the entrepreneurs, that's anyone's guess.
I suspect this is more of a warning shot to others attempting the same playbook ("Singapore-washing", as I've heard folks call it): the state is watching, and shifting geopolitics means it's in their interest to retain successful talent and entities at home rather than let opposition have them.
If anything, I'm genuinely surprised it took them this long. America's been doing this for decades without much in the way of pushback, so China must feel very confident in its position to use such tactics.
I don't know if America has done anything quite like this. The example I'm looking for is where a company starts in the US but leaves and incorporates outside the US and then the US attempts to block acquisition by a foreign company. Also, the enforcement mechanism while vague seems un-American. America might tax the company upon exit but it wouldn't hold the founders hostage in America. If you have examples I'd be curious.
Famously back in the day Grindr , which had a plot point in the Silicon Valley series . Probably more obscure ones that havent been heard of outside software in the Hard tech space like MotorSich (Ukranian) was being courted by Chinese investment got blocked due to US pressure. And very recently the whole TikTok fiasco.
What examples do you have of the US government doing to CEOs what has happened to people like Jack Ma and many other public figures?
For China, there are so many examples of people doing 180s and being full of contrition after those interventions, it's hard to imagine anything but severe intimidation or worse happening behind closed doors.
You've been all over this this thread responding with the same whataboutist comments claiming America does the same thing. And yet, I'm pretty sure America hasn't held American citizens hostage in order to force them to unwind a sale of a foreign company they founded to a different foreign company.
US absolutely has exit bans on people who break/is being investigated for national security and export control laws, which is what Manus did. Except Americans don't call it hostage taking when they do it.
You're right. To my knowledge, we don't hold citizens hostage to force them to unwind the sale of a foreign company they smuggled out of America into another country to a different foreign company.
But you cannot seriously hold America up as blameless when we've wielded our economy as a cudgel against anyone we remotely disagree with (sanctions against Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, etc; tariffs against everybody), have military bases scattered around the world to invade anyone at a moment's notice, regularly park our navy off foreign shores to coerce desired outcomes, and dronestrike civilians as a final saber-rattling before full-fledged conflict.
The details change, but the fundamental playbook - using state violence to coerce outcomes favorable to said state - is far from new. Hell, take a look beyond the past thirty years of history and there's a glut of incidents where empires used this sort of leverage to achieve outcomes - including the United States! We've traded political prisoners to achieve negotiated outcomes repeatedly, we just use different words to make ourselves feel better about it. We've propped up entire puppet states to ensure American corporate interests were served instead!
Like, holy shit, why do I have to teach you naysayers what's already outlined in history books just because you can't be bothered to do the assigned reading?
Just last year the USA de-banked (from EU banks) EU citizens who are International Criminal Court officials for "opening preliminary investigations against Israeli personnel". The USA wields incredible power over financial interactions.
Trump is making it worse, but there had been examples of bad behavior. Now the US is completely uncontrolled. I can't say we wouldn't do something like happened here (trying to stop a foreign company from selling stuff or developing stuff) if it was doing something significant about weapons or ai.
I don't think anyone is holding the US as blameless or perfect, but it gets exhausting to see Chinese propaganda every single time anything like this happens.
When the US does something reprehensible, people rarely come up in droves going on and about China's enablement of the North Korean regime or the many abuses enacted on its population, but every single time the US does anything we had to read a whole lot on how "at least China doesn't invade countries" as if the prime reason as to why China doesn't tend to involve itself militarily isn't precisely American hegemony. The rate at which the country is portrayed as some paragon of human rights, equality and peacefulness is either insane, deluded, or paid for.
I mean, the whataboutism is a critical tool in negating propaganda. Rather than focus on the reprehensibility of anyone using threats of violence like this to force specific outcomes favorable to domestic policy, everyone is instead hung up on the fact China did this.
Whataboutism, used effectively, is meant to draw parallels rather than excuse behavior. Fuck China for what it's doing here, but also fuck the countries and entities who have used similar tactics in the past to great effect. Don't just conveniently put on blinders for what's happening/happened at home all because the government-labelled "baddie" did it too.
Whataboutism, used effectively, is designed to change the subject and stop detailed exploration of the topic at hand. Which is what you're doing in this thread. We don't need to turn a news-relevant thread specifically about the CCP into a thread relitigating decades of American government and business behavior. You can make a separate submission to discuss the US if you'd like.
This just PRC finally applying their version of US export controls, i.e. PRC gets to control PRC originated algos, same argument as TikTok. The founders aren't held "hostage", they're under investigation for violating export control and national security laws. PRC hinted signalled pretty clearly they would use art12 (catch all clause) of export control laws and offshore affiliate rules (to address Singapore loophole) before Manus deal closed - Manus ignored loud hints. The difference is PRC wasn't super judicious in enforcing AI related export controls (especially since agent development new hence art12), US would have ensured this control list tech wouldn't leave US territory via foreign product rule / CFIUS / BIS. PRC gave pretty clear signals to Manus what was going to happen hoping they'd unwind on their own, but they didn't so now they're going to eat shit.
PRC still haven't gone the step up to ban PRC strategic talent from working in US like US has for PRC semi. Don't be surprised in 5-10 years US has to hire PRC workers with obfuscated identities like PRC dealing with US/TW talent in PRC EUV. Plenty more room how these things can escalate depending on how serious PRC starts to treat dual use AI.
interesting. Manus is nominally a Singapore based company and should be immune to these actions. Tiktok argued that it was headquartered in Singapore with a Singaporean CEO. breaking singapore’s fig leaf might prove problematic in the long run.
>not immediately clear on what grounds China was seeking the annulment of a deal involving a Singapore-based company and how, if at all, a completed acquisition transaction would be unwound.
Interesting. I wonder what sorts of threats China could make to back up this demand, or if this is more of a warning for future acquisitions in the space.
I think you need to give some concrete examples, considering the US happily let its companies offshore a lot of work to China over the years, and Chinese funds own large chunks of American companies.
* We continue to embargo Cuba instead of letting it succeed or fail on its own merits - while also controlling their own land for a Black Ops prison and having attempted repeatedly to assassinate their leaders or create coups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...
* Our centralization of global finance and status as a reserve currency lets us dictate global policy on everything from Intellectual Property to National Defense, meaning companies generally have to "play ball" or the host country will incur penalties
I can go on, but really, Wikipedia is right there. If you're looking for a specific analogue to "we kidnapped CEOs and demanded a foreign company unwind their merger", I don't think I can provide that right away; however, if instead you're looking for examples of "country used threats and force to foment an outcome favorable to its domestic policies", well then, boy howdy are there tons and tons of examples out there just a cursory search away.
You basically just parroted a bunch of Howard Zinn agitprop and didn't cite a single example that was remotely similar to this specific incident, because you literally can't. What exactly is your motivation here, because it's certainly not truth-seeking.
Since you think Cuba and China are such nice places, perhaps try living there. You'll quickly find out about their "merits" (such as the fact that they execute dissidents).
Not even getting into the more dubious part of this claim, just because the British or Americans did it doesn't mean it's right or acceptable. If you disagree with that, you're implicitly pro slavery, pro penal expeditions, etc.
There is this thing called implicit acceptability. If you really find it unacceptable you might want to start close to your circle of concern. Otherwise, pretty sure you find it acceptable by action.
Many, even most people are pro-slavery and pro-whatever as we speak, even paying to see it happen. They only mouth some useless moralizing words.
Oh, no, it's incredibly reprehensible what China's doing.
Just like it was reprehensible that America propped up the Iranian shah to ensure western oil interests were served. And reprehensible that the British Empire got the Chinese addicted to Opium to force more favorable trade agreements. Also reprehensible is the Cuban blockade imposed by America, which has prohibited the country from thriving or failing on its own merits and forced suffering onto its people.
It's all reprehensible, and it should all be held up lest folks get this notion that America is this infallible savior who can do no wrong. It's bad, and it should never happen, but it does and it will so long as people keep buying into Nationalist narratives like these.
...bruh. With a name like 'dublinstats', I really would've thought you'd have a better command of the exploitative history of the British Empire and the British East India Company. Like the Opium Wars are right there, but yeah, China's forever the baddie for imposing export controls on domestic resources.
That's interesting, because recently China is definitely trying to paint themselves as the reasonable, stable partner, commited to upholding international law (unlike the US, which is ruled by a madman) . Trying to block this aquisition without good legal argument goes directly against that strategy.
They're doing a lot that goes against that strategy, you just don't see it in the headlines except in cases such as these or when you dig into how they conduct international negotiations or business deals involving the Chinese market.
Not to mention how they are openly expansionist in the SCS and obviously wrt Taiwan.
Of course they want to be seen as reasonable, their ideal is to control the international narrative just how they can do it internally in China.
Funny when you consider the world owes a lot of AI advancements to both Meta and Google, their open releases really did shift things, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, especially for China, which as far as I know were not releasing as much in AI as they have been beforehand. I remember when Meta released Llama originally people were speculating about it, but it wound up producing a lot of projects that used it, I'm sure some in China. I know that Perplexity has its own custom model on top of Llama that they use for their default model, and its pretty darn good.
If I'm remembering right, it was weirder than that, as Llama's originally release strategy was sort of bizarre.
You did have to apply for access, but if you met their criteria (basically if you were the right profile of researcher or in government), you got direct access to the model weights, not just an API for a hosted model. So access was restricted, but the full weights were shared.
I believe that the model was leaked by multiple people, some of which didn't work at Meta but had been granted access to the weights.
Not sure, but open weights have had their effects. For example, look at Wan 2.2 the last open weights Wan release, still the most powerful Video inference out there, to the level of quality it provides, unfortunately, it went closed source, but before they did, the community had built all sorts of tooling and LoRas on top of it. Nothing comes close for video a year later. Back to llama though, look at all the open models people run offline through their Macs. It definitely had a net positive.
Besides the fact that the founders are in China and are barred from leaving, is there anything that prevents Manus/Meta from just telling the CCP to kick rocks?
Sure they can object to it or claim they are "blocking" the sale, but is there really anything they can do considering that Manus is no longer within their jurisdiction?
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.
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.
Not only that, but they can make life inconvenient for your family. Nobody reasonable would accuse the CCP of outright violence, but there are a million bureaucracy-related tricks the state can pull to leverage you and/or your family.
> 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.
Are you really asking whether business deals can be unwound for whatever reason, like how ASML is "forbidden" to sell to certain customers after contracts are signed?
Obviously. With the US first controlling Venezuelan energy supplies to China and then cutting of Iranian energy supplies to China (as well as to the EU), what do you expect?
China isn't as stupid as the EU, which just says thanks and would you perhaps like to blow up another pipeline?
Hormuz will stay closed by the pirates. LNG terminals are already built in Alaska to supply the Asian "allies", whose economy the US also ruins.
If the EU had any backbone, it would cut off the US from ASML.
US controlling the world's energy routes goes back to the Suez Crisis, where it wrestled the canal from Britain. Reagan blew up a Russian-German pipeline. The Nord Stream sabotage was at least condoned and cheered on. Now the closure of Hormuz was first provoked and then co-opted by the US.
The world order is early on in a major restructuring. The EU is a major region and on a path to greater self reliance and determination. This is good for the world imo (as an American)
Chinese company has an issue being a Chinese company for international legal or optics reasons, relocates to Singapore while still being controlled by Chinese nationals or all-but-Chinese-Nationals. Bytedance is a great example. Russian companies do the same thing with Switzerland, see Kaspersky.
They could just as well relocate to California for that matter.
The question is are they still controlled by the PRC. China doesn't allow dual citizenship (like other Asian countries), so people might legitimately want to work abroad while keeping their native passport.
So China is just claiming that anyone who is ethnically Chinese should be pressured? Manus is in Singapore and has no direct connections to China physically and financially. SG offices, SG product, SG founders with family on the mainland.
Manus started in China, built by Chinese talent, hence all their work under purview of PRC export control laws, PRC merely closing loophole on SG washing. They haven't even done nuclear option like banning PRC from working in US AI like US has done in PRC semi.
I don't think their social networks are allowed in China.
From your link it looks like they might do R&D for Oculus in China (but may not even be able to sell it there due to the data-collection tie in required).
Not sure what you mean by catering to the export market. b2b sales would be just as restricted as sales to consumers.
> It was not immediately clear on what grounds China was seeking the annulment of a deal involving a Singapore-based company and how, if at all, a completed acquisition transaction would be unwound.
> Manus' two co-founders, CEO Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao, were summoned to Beijing for talks with regulators in March and later barred from leaving the country, five sources familiar with the matter said.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes.
I don't claim to know what's going on outside of what's being reported, but I'm reminded of other individuals who have "stepped out of line" (as determined by Beijing) and were also either barred from the country or mysteriously disappeared for weeks or months at a time only to randomly reappear at some point singing a different tune.
No one likes AI, billionaires or especially the tech execs anymore. People on hn can disagree but honestly, the apathy all the people with billions and millions have shown to rest of the folks is staggering and the claims of this tech is going to starve the masses, kill the unborn and orphan the babies, but we must build it because if not us then someone worse is not a sales pitch.
That's a threat and it doesn't work.
Feels like Guantanamo Bay all over again.
If anything, I'm genuinely surprised it took them this long. America's been doing this for decades without much in the way of pushback, so China must feel very confident in its position to use such tactics.
For China, there are so many examples of people doing 180s and being full of contrition after those interventions, it's hard to imagine anything but severe intimidation or worse happening behind closed doors.
But you cannot seriously hold America up as blameless when we've wielded our economy as a cudgel against anyone we remotely disagree with (sanctions against Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, etc; tariffs against everybody), have military bases scattered around the world to invade anyone at a moment's notice, regularly park our navy off foreign shores to coerce desired outcomes, and dronestrike civilians as a final saber-rattling before full-fledged conflict.
The details change, but the fundamental playbook - using state violence to coerce outcomes favorable to said state - is far from new. Hell, take a look beyond the past thirty years of history and there's a glut of incidents where empires used this sort of leverage to achieve outcomes - including the United States! We've traded political prisoners to achieve negotiated outcomes repeatedly, we just use different words to make ourselves feel better about it. We've propped up entire puppet states to ensure American corporate interests were served instead!
Like, holy shit, why do I have to teach you naysayers what's already outlined in history books just because you can't be bothered to do the assigned reading?
Those people just love abortions and hate America.
He look, someone who disagrees with you.
Better silence them by flagging their comment.
Or better yet, why don’t you shoot me in the neck and dance in the streets afterwards.
Who would you rather be world police? One or more of Cuba, Iran, China, Russia?
When the US does something reprehensible, people rarely come up in droves going on and about China's enablement of the North Korean regime or the many abuses enacted on its population, but every single time the US does anything we had to read a whole lot on how "at least China doesn't invade countries" as if the prime reason as to why China doesn't tend to involve itself militarily isn't precisely American hegemony. The rate at which the country is portrayed as some paragon of human rights, equality and peacefulness is either insane, deluded, or paid for.
Whataboutism, used effectively, is meant to draw parallels rather than excuse behavior. Fuck China for what it's doing here, but also fuck the countries and entities who have used similar tactics in the past to great effect. Don't just conveniently put on blinders for what's happening/happened at home all because the government-labelled "baddie" did it too.
You should have just left it at that.
There is a massive difference in degree and kind here. Mixing them up at this level is spherical cow territory.
PRC still haven't gone the step up to ban PRC strategic talent from working in US like US has for PRC semi. Don't be surprised in 5-10 years US has to hire PRC workers with obfuscated identities like PRC dealing with US/TW talent in PRC EUV. Plenty more room how these things can escalate depending on how serious PRC starts to treat dual use AI.
"In January, Beijing began investigating Manus for compliance with export controls [...]"
You could make way more money as an AI shill.
So you said today, as you often say that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen?
Shou Chew:
Singapore.
Cotton:
Are you a citizen of any other nation?
Chew:
No, Senator.
Cotton:
Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship?
Chew:
Senator? I served my nation in Singapore. No, I did not.
Cotton:
Do you have a Singaporean passport?
Chew:
Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years in Singapore.
Cotton:
Do you have any other passports from any other nations?
Chew:
No, Senator.
Cotton:
Your wife is an American citizen. Your children are American citizens?
Chew:
That's correct.
Cotton:
Have you ever applied for American citizenship?
Chew:
No, not yet.
Cotton:
Okay. Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?
Chew:
Senator? I'm Singaporean, no.
Cotton:
Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?
Chew:
No. Senator, again, I'm Singaporean.
Interesting. I wonder what sorts of threats China could make to back up this demand, or if this is more of a warning for future acquisitions in the space.
It's a disgusting playbook, but it's also an effective one if you're a state trying to exert control over important players or entities.
* The US and UK propped up the Iranian Shah to help western oil interests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
* US Export Controls basically handcuff anyone of import involved in creating anything of value to the state: https://www.investopedia.com/u-s-export-restrictions-6753407
* We continue to embargo Cuba instead of letting it succeed or fail on its own merits - while also controlling their own land for a Black Ops prison and having attempted repeatedly to assassinate their leaders or create coups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...
* Our centralization of global finance and status as a reserve currency lets us dictate global policy on everything from Intellectual Property to National Defense, meaning companies generally have to "play ball" or the host country will incur penalties
* That time we overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemala because they imposed radical ideas like a minimum wage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état
* And that time we overthrew the democratically-elected socialist government in Chile to prop up exploitative labor practices and resource extraction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état
I can go on, but really, Wikipedia is right there. If you're looking for a specific analogue to "we kidnapped CEOs and demanded a foreign company unwind their merger", I don't think I can provide that right away; however, if instead you're looking for examples of "country used threats and force to foment an outcome favorable to its domestic policies", well then, boy howdy are there tons and tons of examples out there just a cursory search away.
Complete disregard for human life for profit.
Many, even most people are pro-slavery and pro-whatever as we speak, even paying to see it happen. They only mouth some useless moralizing words.
Just like it was reprehensible that America propped up the Iranian shah to ensure western oil interests were served. And reprehensible that the British Empire got the Chinese addicted to Opium to force more favorable trade agreements. Also reprehensible is the Cuban blockade imposed by America, which has prohibited the country from thriving or failing on its own merits and forced suffering onto its people.
It's all reprehensible, and it should all be held up lest folks get this notion that America is this infallible savior who can do no wrong. It's bad, and it should never happen, but it does and it will so long as people keep buying into Nationalist narratives like these.
okiedokie.
Not to mention how they are openly expansionist in the SCS and obviously wrt Taiwan.
Of course they want to be seen as reasonable, their ideal is to control the international narrative just how they can do it internally in China.
I was working at Google at the time. Before Llama, releasing weights was not even worth a discussion.
You did have to apply for access, but if you met their criteria (basically if you were the right profile of researcher or in government), you got direct access to the model weights, not just an API for a hosted model. So access was restricted, but the full weights were shared.
I believe that the model was leaked by multiple people, some of which didn't work at Meta but had been granted access to the weights.
Sure they can object to it or claim they are "blocking" the sale, but is there really anything they can do considering that Manus is no longer within their jurisdiction?
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.
Nationals. The word you are looking for is nationals.
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.
They kept him under house arrest for years and now he complies
China isn't as stupid as the EU, which just says thanks and would you perhaps like to blow up another pipeline?
Hormuz will stay closed by the pirates. LNG terminals are already built in Alaska to supply the Asian "allies", whose economy the US also ruins.
If the EU had any backbone, it would cut off the US from ASML.
Yes, this is about the rest of the world.
ASML depends on a lot of US technologies.
The question is are they still controlled by the PRC. China doesn't allow dual citizenship (like other Asian countries), so people might legitimately want to work abroad while keeping their native passport.
That is the leverage that China has.
https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/shanghai/?p[offices...
https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/hongkong/?p[offices...
I also assume, like most advertising platforms, they cater heavily to the China export market.
From your link it looks like they might do R&D for Oculus in China (but may not even be able to sell it there due to the data-collection tie in required).
Not sure what you mean by catering to the export market. b2b sales would be just as restricted as sales to consumers.
They're not. A significant part of ad spend by the likes of Temu, AliExpress, Shein and other Chinese exporters are on Meta's platforms: e.g. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/31/metas-continued-rally-could-...