Political Backlash Grows in Washington to Chinese Takeovers
By KEITH BRADSHER and PAUL MOZUR

HONG KONG — As Chinese companies try to snap up American tech businesses, they are setting off ripples of unease in the Obama administration and in Congress, inciting a backlash that has stopped the latest acquisition attempt.

One of the companies that first brought silicon to Silicon Valley — Fairchild Semiconductor International — said it would remain in American hands after rejecting a takeover offer worth about $2.5 billion led by Chinese state-backed buyers. Instead, Fairchild embraced a smaller bid from an American rival on Tuesday, citing concerns that federal regulators might reject the Chinese deal.

The unsuccessful Chinese bid for Fairchild was just one of at least 10 such offers in the last year for international semiconductor businesses, mostly in the United States. China’s Five-Year Plan, the government’s economic and strategic road map, has emphasized semiconductors as a core industry. And a long list of Chinese companies with varying ties to the government have been trying to acquire foreign technology in the sector.

Recent Chinese moves in areas like heavy equipment, aerospace and financial services are also drawing attention from both ends of the American political spectrum.

A group of 44 Republican members of Congress and one Democrat sent a letter on Tuesday afternoon to the Treasury Department, demanding that the Obama administration’s interagency committee on foreign acquisitions “conduct a full and rigorous investigation” of a bid by a company in Chongqing, China, to acquire the small but historic Chicago Stock Exchange.

Representative Robert Pittenger, Republican of North Carolina, said in a telephone interview that it had been easy to gather signatures on the letter in the House, with members worried that the deal would give China direct access to America’s financial infrastructure. “It took two days — generally, you’ll spend two weeks trying to get signatures,” he said.

But because semiconductors are the tiny electronic cores of a long list of military systems, including drones and smart bombs, Chinese interest in them has attracted the most attention in Washington. Those worries have been amplified as the Obama administration has repeatedly accused Beijing of online espionage against the United States. The worries have further increased as China has expanded its role in the South China Sea, including claims by the United States and Taiwan this week that China has deployed surface-to-air missiles there.

“China’s engaged in a buying spree of international semiconductor firms,” said Michael R. Wessel, a member of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group created by Congress to monitor bilateral relations. “What they can’t develop on their own, they intend to buy, if they can, or steal, if they must.”

The Chinese government has vehemently denied that it is responsible for hacking attacks, while pointing to detailed disclosures by Edward Snowden of how the United States engages in extensive electronic intelligence gathering on China. Economists in China — and some in the United States, particularly at Wall Street banks that advise on Chinese acquisitions — argue that the United States needs to remain open to foreign investment, particularly given low American savings rates.

When Washington politicians start objecting to Chinese acquisitions, “they’re caught up by old-school, Cold War thinking,” said Fred Hu, a prominent Chinese economist and fund manager.

Fears of Chinese control over critical technologies recently prompted United States officials to block a $2.9 billion deal for Chinese investors to buy a controlling stake in a unit of the Dutch electronics company Philips.

Fairchild said in early January that it expected a bid from China Resources Microelectronics — a unit of the state-owned China Resources Holdings — and Hua Capital Management to be a “superior proposal.” That offer amounted to $21.70 a share in cash, compared with the $20 a share that ON Semiconductor, an American company, had on the table. But worries about the likelihood of approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States outweighed the attractiveness of the bid.

Fairchild’s decision shows the effect of broader political suspicion in the United States toward Chinese investment in the high-tech sector. Last summer, a similar but much larger deal was derailed before it even made it to regulators. The $23 billion bid for the American memory chip maker Micron by a Chinese state-controlled firm was undone by concerns about its political feasibility.

In that case, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, voiced worries about the deal’s effect on national security in a public letter to Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. But Republicans are now starting to take up the issue, which means that it could take on a partisan dimension in an election year.

Despite the difficult climate, Chinese bids for American companies seem likely to increase, affected by a slowing Chinese economy and a desire by many Chinese companies to move money out of the country before China’s currency can weaken further against the dollar. In the sensitive microchip industry, deals are also being driven by more than $100 billion set aside by the Chinese government to help the country improve the sophistication and scale of the critical industry.

The number of deals involving a Chinese company that is trying to buy an overseas chip maker rose to 21 last year, including the offer for Fairchild, from eight in 2010, according to the data company Dealogic. There have already been five this year, worth $857 million.

That has drawn more attention to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, also known as Cfius. An interagency body that includes representatives from the Treasury, Justice and Defense Departments, Cfius can recommend against foreign deals made for American companies, or companies connected to the United States, on grounds of national security. The agency can also broker compromises in which companies enact special security checks for sensitive aspects of an acquisition or sell off those assets.

Many in the semiconductor industry are watching closely to see whether Cfius will investigate a bid by the Chinese chip maker Tsinghua Holdings for a stake in the American company Western Digital, which makes hard disk drives. A lack of an investigation could herald more moves by Chinese investors to take minority stakes in American chip and memory companies.

The potential Chinese buyers of Fairchild had already agreed to pay a $108 million termination fee if the deal did not get approval from Cfius. They also increased their offer to $22 a share after Fairchild raised concerns. But Fairchild’s transaction committee said an agreement would still be too risky.

The Fairchild board said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it found the higher offer attractive but that there was “nonnegligible risk of a failure to obtain Cfius approval.”

Fairchild works on several technologies that could have raised concerns. In particular, it develops and produces sensors that track motion in three dimensions, which are used in many cutting-edge technologies. Xsens, a company acquired by Fairchild in 2014, works on sensors that guide unmanned submarines and drones and help in maritime surveillance.

Shares of ON Semiconductor closed up more than 6 percent on Tuesday, when Fairchild announced that it still favored the American company’s bid. Fairchild’s stock dropped almost 3 percent.

中資收購美企 華府合力封殺

中國大陸企業頻頻收購美國公司，包括科技業和金融業，引起白宮和國會對國安的疑慮，兩黨聯手封殺某些併購案。

紐約時報報導，美國矽谷IC業先鋒快捷半導體去年十一月先同意安森美收購，三周後就透露中國央企旗下華潤微電子及北京財團清芯華創企圖搶親，出價高達廿五億美元，卻在十五日拍板根留美國，嫁給出資較少的安森美。

快捷以聯邦單位可能不准為由，說明轉折原因，其實關鍵在於快捷握有涉及軍事及高科技的敏感技術，如同飛利浦Lumileds、美光併購案，民主、共和兩黨國會議員在美國大選年顯現團結對外的共識，齊力擋下中資併購案。

快捷是一家從設計、製造、封測到銷售的整合元件製造公司（IDM），這也是中資兩度提高收購條件，企圖死會活標的原因之一

快捷掌握的重要科技包括研發生產的感測器可追蹤立體動作，被運用在許多尖端技術上。快捷旗下Xsens公司正在發展可引導無人潛水艇及小型無人機的感測器，協助海軍巡防監控。

北京政府設立超過一千億美元基金，透過海外併購來發展半導體強國的野心，使華府日益不安。Dealogic數據顯示，中資收購海外晶片業五年來已掃貨十三家，今年不到兩個月，已提出五家收購案、價格達八點五七億美元。

晶片就像複雜電子系統的大腦般，可指揮含軍事硬體（武器）、基礎設備在內的種種應用，中資財團出資廿九億美元對荷商飛利浦LED照明事業Lumileds八成控股權收購交易、中國紫光集團二百卅億美元併購美光科技，都遭美國「外國投資委員會」（Cfius）以國安理由封殺。

美國法界人士直言，從Cfius幾番阻擋的動作來看，日後中資對美國半導體業的併購案將很難過關，國防部、國土安全部尤其擔憂「供應鏈安全性」被突破。

國會設立的「美中經濟安全審查委員會」成員魏索表示：「中資大採購國際半導體業，如果無法自己發展技術，就用買的；買不成，必要時就用偷的。」

除了科技業，陸資也看中美國的金融業。芝加哥證交所五日宣布，已同意接受中國重慶財信企業集團所領導投資財團的收購案。該案預期今年下半年完成。

擁有一百卅四年歷史的芝加哥證交所占美國股票市場占有率只有百分之零點五左右，但這筆交易將讓財信集團在全球規模最大（廿二兆美元）股票的市場立足。

十七日，四十五名美國國會共和黨議員和一名民主黨議員連署聲明，要求Cfius對本案進行「全面和嚴密的調查」，若發現該集團與中國政府有密切關係，必須予以否決。

曾任美國高盛投資銀行經濟研究執行董事、高盛大中華區主席的中國知名經濟學家胡祖六表示，華府政治人物開始反對中資收購案，顯示仍困在「過時的冷戰思維」裡。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/business/dealbook/china-fairchild-semiconductor-bid-rejected.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/business/20160218/c18db-chips/zh-hant/

2016-02-19．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯張佑生