China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus • Hacker News Board

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#221

Post by freakynit » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

chinadata wrote: post #219

freakynit wrote: post #218

The governments need to keep their noses away from private companies, unless private companies turn to directly, or indirectly, limit their own competition using nefarious practises. Politicians need to be kept in check, or else, they become dictators. If not, then it's just a matter of when, not if, that that transition happens.

Yes, so the US need allow ASML sell to China.

Ideally, yes.

The thing is such actions from govt.'s usually start with the right intent and in a very limited scope... but, with time, both gets traded away for having more political control over entire ecosystem, thereby, allowing corruption to creep-in, and on a more extreme level, illegal arrests and account freezes.

The issue is always the human nature: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#222

Post by giwook » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

andersonpico wrote: post #183

nutjob2 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false equivalence. Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail. That power can only be granted by a judge. China arbitrarily traps people in China without any such thing or any due process whatsoever.

> China arbitrarily traps people in China without any such thing or any due process whatsoever. What makes you think there's no legal process for blocking nationals from leaving China?It's a very common instrument and in a bunch of countries it's an administrative measure with even less scrutinity than a judicial mandate. Do you consider France or the UK to be a countries without rule of law or due process? But to th…

America is not exactly a shining moral example for the world, particularly these days, but these Chinese apologist takes can be a bit baffling to read at times.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#223

Post by nsoonhui » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

I don't think this has much to do with export control-- note that Manus, as impressive as it is, is still a wrapper around fundamental western models--, rather it has more to do with capital controls.

China has been trying to stop large scale outflow of businesses and individuals for quite some time, due to local politics concern. What Manus was doing, achieving successes first in China then setup a nominal shell company in Singapore, seems like a textbook case of flight (润）, which China is trying to prevent.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#224

Post by bluegatty » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 2:59 AM UTC

nsoonhui wrote: post #223

I don't think this has much to do with export control-- note that Manus, as impressive as it is, is still a wrapper around fundamental western models--, rather it has more to do with capital controls. China has been trying to stop large scale outflow of businesses and individuals for quite some time, due to local politics concern. What Manus was doing, achieving successes first in China then setup a nominal shell com…

This is a good answer. The export controls have a strategic purpose - and Manus fits squarely within the spirit of the controls and maybe not the technicality of the rules.

Consider that if this were a much smaller project, they'd run afoul of the same technicalities but would they be sanctioned? Probably not.

It's very fair to make comparisons as to the arbitrary application of these rules in various regimes, lord knows 'TikTok' has been treated like a Pinata, but still, it'd be naive to think that this is about 'some rule'. It's about the 'Grand Game'.

Should note: the 'nominal shell' stuff I think is fair game for all nations to be scrutinizing. All of this 'Caribbean Island Incorporation' I think violates 'the spirit' of commercial laws and practices anyhow. It'd be one thing if Manus was 'really' a Singapore company but that it's truly just 'some paperwork' gives legitimacy to the 'onshore rules' being applied.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#225

Post by andsoitis » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:01 AM UTC

maxglute wrote: post #63

This just PRC finally applying their version of US export controls, i.e. PRC gets to control PRC originated algos, same argument as TikTok. The founders aren't held "hostage", they're under investigation for violating export control and national security laws. PRC hinted signalled pretty clearly they would use art12 (catch all clause) of export control laws and offshore affiliate rules (to address Singapore loophole)…

[flagged]

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#226

Post by reissbaker » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:05 AM UTC

maxglute wrote: post #153

bit-anarchist wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong how? It is your comment that is missing the point. The contention isn't whether USA has export control (you are the one who brought it up), it's whether USA has actually prevented a company from being sold overseas by detaining their owners. Are you trying to push a red herring?

US export controls prevent companies from selling controlled tech. If US companies tried o circumvent then they would absolutely be denied, if they did secretly anyway, against, the law of course they'll likely have passport surrendered, i.e. exit ban if flight risk. Like this isn't complicated, the difference is Manus was full blown retarded enough to transparently circumvent PRC export controls after PRC closed loo…

What are you talking about? Here are the concrete differences:

1. The U.S. has had a long-standing, extremely public policy that you Cannot Sell Nvidia Chips to China since 2022. Supermicro is an American company (based in San Jose, California), and they sold chips to China from 2024-2025, and they got caught, so they were arrested.

2. Manus founders created... an agent harness? And their company was incorporated in Singapore, not in China. And after they sold their Singaporean company to Meta, China decided that selling Singaporean agentic software "violated export controls" (and even the CCP representative couldn't list which supposed control it violated), and detained them all in China and is attempting to force the Singaporean company to unwind the sale.

These are not really comparable. The Supermicro folks are running a company in America and knew ahead of time, for years, that what they were doing violated American export controls. In the case of Manus, they weren't a Chinese company, no one knew they were supposedly violating unwritten export controls, and China decided post-hoc to detain them all and attempt to force the (Singaporean!) company to unwind the sale.

Quite simply this has never happened in corporate America. America is very friendly to corporations and you'd have to be wildly, knowingly in the wrong to get arrested for an M&A deal.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#227

Post by smcin » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:11 AM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #192

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail This has historically not been the case, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haig_v._Agee and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson

Anyone with a child support order that makes decent money is only one misrecorded or bounced payment away from being ineligible for a passport. The trigger is only 4 digits of USD.

In the US, the Passport Denial Program, since 1998 (other developed countries enacted similar legislation), following the 1992 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) [2]:

> The Child Support Enforcement Passport Denial Program was enacted as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. While authorized in 1996, the program was jointly implemented by the U.S. Department of State and the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement in June 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_support#Enforcement

[1]: "The [US] Child Support Enforcement Passport Denial Program" https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12660

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._ratification_of_the_Conve...

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#228

Post by ninjagoo » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:12 AM UTC

strangegecko wrote: post #27

stego-tech wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is more of a warning shot to others attempting the same playbook ("Singapore-washing", as I've heard folks call it): the state is watching, and shifting geopolitics means it's in their interest to retain successful talent and entities at home rather than let opposition have them. If anything, I'm genuinely surprised it took them this long. America's been doing this for decades without much in the way o…

What examples do you have of the US government doing to CEOs what has happened to people like Jack Ma and many other public figures? For China, there are so many examples of people doing 180s and being full of contrition after those interventions, it's hard to imagine anything but severe intimidation or worse happening behind closed doors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#229

Post by reissbaker » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:16 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #44

reissbaker wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's precisely the fact that the founders live in China. The CCP can make them... kick rocks... for the rest of their lives. Generally speaking this seems bad for Chinese companies, though. They were able to raise capital from the West by running out of "Singapore"; I think basically every investor will have significant pause investing in Chinese-national-owned startups after this, "Singapore-based" or not.

> Generally speaking this seems bad for Chinese companies, though. Anyone who has ever thought otherwise was just naive. This is anything but news. If you’ve had an impression that China capital market is free and western-like, you were right - it was an impression. Always has been.

Naive or not, plenty of investors believed that running a company out of Singapore would shield them from the aggressively un-free Chinese market controls. Manus is proving them wrong, which will hurt Chinese companies that try to run out of Singapore for access to Western capital markets.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#230

Post by xbmcuser » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:18 AM UTC

bluegatty wrote: post #224

nsoonhui wrote: post #223

I don't think this has much to do with export control-- note that Manus, as impressive as it is, is still a wrapper around fundamental western models--, rather it has more to do with capital controls. China has been trying to stop large scale outflow of businesses and individuals for quite some time, due to local politics concern. What Manus was doing, achieving successes first in China then setup a nominal shell com…

This is a good answer. The export controls have a strategic purpose - and Manus fits squarely within the spirit of the controls and maybe not the technicality of the rules. Consider that if this were a much smaller project, they'd run afoul of the same technicalities but would they be sanctioned? Probably not. It's very fair to make comparisons as to the arbitrary application of these rules in various regimes, lord k…

Tiktok was about only one thing and that was Israel losing the narrative war as unlike most of western social media which was deranking and censoring showing of Israeli atrocities to the world Tiktok was not.