The united states suppressed Chinese technology companies with national strength, and the United States once again succeeded.
Just now, SenseTime's latest announcement said that due to the US "blacklist" and its impact, it will postpone the Hong Kong IPO listing plan, and the previous investment and rates will be refunded.
SenseTime stressed in the announcement that the company is committed to completing the global offering and listing as soon as possible.
Qubit learned that SenseTime will complete the original planned IPO listing before the end of the year as soon as possible.
If according to the original plan, SenseTime will land on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 17 (this Friday), before which the IPO plan has been completed and the cornerstone investors have been determined.
But on December 10, SenseTime's "pricing day," a "ban" from the U.S. Treasury Department suddenly appeared and seemed to be prepared.
Moreover, under the "ban", it is the fundraising of SenseTime that is directly affected. According to the requirements of the U.S. Treasury Department, "U.S. related" investors are not allowed to participate in SenseTime fundraising.
In the highly globalized financial capital markets, this is tantamount to a pull-out.
This also means that the United States has entered a new stage in its suppression of Chinese technology companies, and has come up with a financial investment stick after restricting technology exports, cutting off upstream supply, and even forcing the open source community to take sides.
This may also be a new challenge for Chinese technology companies.
SenseTime is once again on the "blacklist"
On December 10, 2021, the United States announced that SenseTime would be blacklisted as a "military industrial complex company."
"Involving in the military" is also an old routine that the United States has tried and failed many times.
Previously, it also listed the Chinese mobile phone company Xiaomi as a "military-related" company, which was ridiculed by netizens - Xiaomi has no other "army-related" possibilities except "Lei Jun".
Ironically, xiaomi later launched an appeal against the United States, and really won the case.
Lei Jun later shared the behind-the-scenes story publicly, saying that the "evidence" given by the United States was that Xiaomi had won the industry award issued by the Chinese official agency, and then put Xiaomi on the "blacklist".
This also shows the arbitrariness of American means and crimes.
However, unlike Xiaomi, the time when SenseTime was included in the "blacklist" is more targeted.
SenseTime submitted its prospectus at the end of August this year, and everything went well, and it was approved at the end of November, and the prospectus phase was opened.
After disclosing the specific prospectus last Tuesday, the pre-listing fundraising will be completed by December 10, and then the pricing will be set and officially listed on December 17.
However, just as the cornerstone fundraising was completed and the issue price was about to be disclosed, the US ban was issued "accurately".
Under the ban, "U.S. investors" will not be able to participate in SenseTime's IPO.
In today's highly globalized financial and capital world, "American investors" are broadly involved.
Not only are there investment institutions registered in the United States, but they may also include various types of investment institutions associated with the United States.
As soon as the ban came out, foreign media immediately pointed out that SenseTime's original smooth fundraising and listing would most likely be affected.
On December 11, SenseTime also officially issued an official statement in response, stressing the unfounded "allegations" of the United States and protesting that the United States used geopolitical means to hinder the development of science and technology.
But in response to the failure to change the direct impact of the US "blacklist", SenseTime's IPO plan was forced to be postponed.
The "American trap" has escalated
Since entering the new technological innovation cycle, it is no longer news that the United States has suppressed Chinese technology companies.
And the means are constantly upgraded.
After the earliest suppression of Huawei, the case of the french communications giant Alstom that used national hegemony earlier to bring down the French communications giant Alstom, the "American Trap", is also known to more people.
The method is to organize the name, drag the other party into a long cycle of litigation and lawsuits, and then continue to suppress in the process, and finally win the commercial competition.
Whether it is the first phase of the crackdown on Huawei, or the later sale of TikTok with the threat of shutdown, it is the application of the "American Trap" version 1.0.
But unexpectedly, the 1.0 version of the crackdown did not bring Chinese technology companies to their knees.
After the CFO was detained in a foreign country, Huawei still insisted on appealing and did not accept the so-called confession compromise, which ended because the United States could not produce substantive evidence.
In the process, the "American Trap" 2.0 followed.
This time, the U.S. is putting pressure on upstream vendors, academic organizations, and even open source organizations registered in the U.S. to cut off supply.
These include chip raw material and manufacturing supplier Arm, Google's mobile open source system ForZa, academic organization IEEE, and even GitHub, an open source hosting platform, which has been called a tool for the United States to suppress Chinese technology companies.
What hit the face is that in order to avoid becoming a tool for suppression in the United States, the open source organization that was once registered in the United States began to "flee", and the new generation of chip architecture open source organization RISC-V moved its registration place to Switzerland.
But obviously, the suppression of 2.0 has a limited role for the new generation of AI technology companies.
Because unlike previous generations of Chinese technology companies, a new generation of startups in the field of AI has mastered the autonomy of technological originality from the beginning of the technology emergence period.
These companies are ahead of their global peers in terms of technological originality, tool autonomy, and even new research and new achievements in the process of entrepreneurship and development – the 2.0 version of the "American Trap" naturally does not play a fundamental role.
Therefore, the "American Trap" version 3.0 is becoming a new means of suppression.
The core means of version 3.0 is to use the impact of the globalization process to affect more Chinese technology companies.
The precision strike suffered by SenseTime is the most typical embodiment of the "American Trap" 3.0.
In fact, this is not the first time that SenseTime has been included in the "blacklist" by the United States, when the United States added a large number of Chinese AI companies to the "list" at the end of 2019, SenseTime was among them, but it did not have a significant impact on the development of SenseTime at that time.
(At that time, It affected Megvii, which was in the process of listing in Hong Kong.) ）
Now, on the occasion of SenseTime's IPO listing, especially on the "last day" of the completion of the fundraising, it is not inaccurate and cruel to exert long-arm influence on trumped-up charges.
What needs to be more vigilant is that the "American Trap" 3.0 crackdown may not end, nor will it stop at SenseTime or a specific company.
With the rise of a new generation of chinese technology companies with more technological leadership, the restrictions of the United States may only become more naked.
However, for SenseTime and the new generation of Chinese technology companies, this kind of groundless suppression is also a recognition in another dimension.
It not only proves the leading position of technology, but also proves the value of the business and the company.
It can be called "strict election in the United States".
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SenseTime: Delayed global offering and listing, and refunded the application for shares without interest