HONG KONG -- Just ahead of a deadline last Friday for U.S. investors to cease trading in the stocks and bonds of companies officially linked to the Chinese military, the Washington agency charged with enforcing the ban quietly notified investors that they would not be punished for holding onto such securities.
The move could be seen to undercut a key element of the investment ban first announced by Donald Trump days after he lost the November 2020 U.S. presidential election to Joe Biden. But it is unclear how many U.S. investors still held blacklisted companies' securities in the final hours before the trading deadline arrived.
