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1/7 Amid Covid-19 crisis you may have missed this. China Reform Holdings tried on Tuesday to nominate 4 directors to the board of UK& #39;s Imagination Technologies Group (chip designer). This is a bold move & could allow redomiciling of company & assets to PRC https://news.sky.com/story/tory-grandees-warn-over-chinese-move-on-chipmaker-imagination-11968912">https://news.sky.com/story/tor...
2/7 Here I& #39;ll take a quick look at the Chinese side of this development. In 2017 Imagination was taken over by Canyon Bridge Capital Partners. Canyon& #39;s main investor is China Reform Holdings Corp 中国国新控股有限责任公司. For a start Canyon& #39;s original involvement is problematic.
3/7 Canyon was set up by Ben Chow who asked Ray Bingham to lead and thought a "U.S.-based buyout fund with a U.S. partner like Bingham would trigger much less scrutiny by CFIUS [US body that reviews foreign investment in US] compared with a Chinese buyer" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lattice-m-a-canyondbridge-bingham/former-oracle-board-member-dogged-by-links-to-china-backed-chip-deal-idUSKBN19703P">https://www.reuters.com/article/u...
4/7 Looking at China Reform Holdings at the head of this chain is also worthwhile. Not a big surprise they& #39;re enmeshed in party-state but even considering that - I think they lay it on a bit thick in their literature. For example, take a look at the Chairman& #39;s message...
5/7 If you don& #39;t read Chinese then pop this into Google translate and you& #39;ll at least get a flavour. They& #39;re "adhering to the guidance of Xi Jinping& #39;s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CCP" https://www.crhc.cn/gygx/speech/ ">https://www.crhc.cn/gygx/spee...
6/7 They also appear to be slightly more involved in united front work than most comparable groups as well: https://www.crhc.cn/djgz/djdt/201912/t20191231_2844.html">https://www.crhc.cn/djgz/djdt... There is more to this but I have an PhD thesis to write (on UK-China elite relations
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😬" title="Grimacing face" aria-label="Emoji: Grimacing face">) so will have to leave it there. Let& #39;s see how this plays out
7/7 For more in the coming days on the tech side of this deal - do look out for @DempseyPaul& #39;s content when posted. FYI @CommonsForeign @CommonsSTC @TomTugendhat @foreignoffice
