China slams US move to delist of its telecom firms, vows to retaliate

China on Saturday slammed the United States after the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) move to delist three Chinese telecom compes and vowed to take necessary measure to protect Chinese "enterprises' legitimate rights".

The NYSE said on Friday that it will delist three Chinese compes to comply with a US executive order that imposed restrictions on compes that were identified as affiliated with the Chinese military.

The three compes -- China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom Hong Kong -- will be delisted between January 7 and January 11 and proceedings to delist them have started, according to a statement by the NYSE.

Chinese Ministry of Commerce called it a US' practice of abusing national security and using state power to crack down on Chinese enterprises, the Chinese state media, Global Times, reported.

"China opposes the US practice of abusing national security to include Chinese enterprises on the list of so-called 'Communist Chinese military compes' and will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises," China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

"The practice of abusing national security and using state power to crack down on Chinese enterprises is not in line with market rules and logic, which harms not only the legitimate rights of Chinese enterprises, but also the interests of investors in other countries, including the US," the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in the statement, adding that the US move will seriously undermine confidence in the US capital market.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump on November 12 had signed an executive order that prohibits Americans from investing in 31 firms.

The order prohibited US investors from buying and selling shares in a list of Chinese compes designated by the Pentagon as having military ties.

The executive order has resulted in a series of compes being removed from indexes compiled by MSCI, S&P Dow Jones Global Indices and FTSE Russell, reported SCMP.

Following the steps of the US and Japan, the Taiwanese Economic Affairs Ministry on Wednesday too tightened control over Chinese investments due to national security concerns.

Based on new regulations that came into effect from Wednesday, Chinese military-owned compes and Chinese Communist Party-owned compes were banned from investing in Taiwan.

( With inputs from ANI )

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