17/09/2026

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | SEPT 17, 2026

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Chinese investors pile into US stocks after Beijing lifts quotas

AI not a ‘monopoly of great powers’, China says

BEIJING: AI is not a “monopoly of great powers” and the US should work with China to manage risk to create a non discriminatory development environment, China’s top newspaper, the People’s Daily , said in a commentary yesterday. The US and China are the two major driving forces of frontier AI development and the technology’s global adoption. Both superpowers have been at loggerheads over AI policies and industry practices, with these issues slated to feature prominently in bilateral talks next week. The White House earlier this year accused China of stealing US artificial intelligence (AI) labs’intellectual property on an industrial scale. AI is a new domain for human development and China encourages open-source and open practices, providing firms, including from the US, access to open-source models, the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily wrote in a commentary. “AI is a new domain for human development, not a monopoly of great powers, and must not become an arena for zero-sum competition,” said the commentary published under the pen name “Zhong Sheng”, or “Voice of China”. Reports disclose that US companies extensively“distill”Chinese models, it added. “According to US logic, when American enterprises use distillation it is an ‘industry standard practice,‘ while when Chinese enterprises apply it, it constitutes an ‘attack.’ This is naked double standards,“ the paper said. Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using the output of larger ones as part of an effort to lower the costs of training a powerful new AI tool. By elevating an industry standard practice to a national security issue, the US seeks a monopoly over the industry under the guise of combating distillation, the commentary added. However, China is willing to engage in “constructive and professional” discussions with the US to advance the open, inclusive, universal, and beneficial development of AI, it said. – Reuters

o Appetite for overseas assets surges on pent-up demand SHANGHAI: Chinese investors are piling into foreign assets, especially US stock funds, after regulators lifted outbound quotas, unlocking pent-up demand as domestic yields are at rock bottom and Beijing tightens unofficial routes for moving money abroad. While China has cracked down on what it deems illegal overseas investing through online brokerages, it has simultaneously broadened authorised channels to foreign markets. Late last month China’s foreign exchange regulator raised the outstanding Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor quota by US$6.8 billion (RM28 billion) to a record US$183 billion. The speed with which US-focused funds moved to curb inflows just days later underscores investors’ scramble for exposure to Wall Street. The daily inflow cap on a QDII fund tracking the Nasdaq 100 was raised from 10 yuan to 5,000 yuan on Sept 9. Just a day later, its fund manager Wanjia Asset Management sharply limited inflows again to 100 yuan daily for an individual investor. “It means there was explosive inflows so the fund manager needed to limit the subscriptions,” said Ivan Shi, head of research at fund consultancy Z-Ben Advisors. “There remains huge appetite in China for US tech stocks.” The rush overseas highlights Beijing’s growing challenge in stemming capital outflows. Confidence in the domestic economy remains fragile, China’s 10-year government bond yield sits more than three percentage points below US Treasury yields, and the local stock market has broadly lagged the double-digit gains delivered by US equities this year. Portfolio investment hit a record US$426 billion deficit in 2025, according to China’s Balance of Payments data, and net outflows reached US$146 billion in the first quarter of this year.

Wall Street has emerged as a key destination for Chinese investors looking to diversify overseas. – SUNBIZ IMAGES

yuan (RM608 billion) business, according to Shanghai Securities. Most US-bound ETFs trade at a hefty premium to their net asset value, reflecting investors’ eagerness to secure limited overseas exposure. A Shenzhen-listed ETF tracking the Nasdaq-100 Technology Sector Index traded at a premium of 24% yesterday. “The premium just reflects strong household demand on global assets,” said Zhaopeng Xing, senior China strategist at ANZ. China’s balance of payments turned positive recently due to strong trade inflows, “but the regulators still need a balance to control outflows,” he said. – Reuters

In another case, China Universal Asset Management eased restrictions on its Nasdaq 100 ETF, only to tighten curbs again two days later. TruValue Asset Management took a similar U-turn on its QDII fund investing in global chip stocks. “Chinese demand for global asset allocation is getting bigger and bigger,” said Xu Jie, fund manager at Yuanzi Investment Management, which invests in global markets through exchange-traded funds (ETFs) under QDII. Long-term investors need to “diversify risks and share growth in major global markets.” The US is the top destination for QDII funds, accounting for nearly half of the roughly 1 trillion

US agency questions Tesla on Cybercab certification WASHINGTON: The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday said Tesla must answer a series of questions by Sept 30 on whether it properly self-certified its autonomous Cybercab robotaxi as part of the government’s investigation. the vehicle touchscreen by which occupants can move the vehicle. It also wants Tesla to answer questions including maximum speed, geographical or time-of-day limits and other restrictions on the robotaxis.

On Sept 3, Tesla began commercial deployment of a small number of the two-seater Cybercabs in Austin, Texas, and said it planned to gradually expand the service to additional vehicles and locations. NHTSA said the Cybercab lacks conventional manual controls, including a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator pedal and mirrors. In June, the agency proposed to end a government requirement for manual brake pedals in self-driving vehicles, a move that would make it easier to deploy such vehicles without human controls on US roads. The agency has proposed other changes to federal safety standards to allow autonomous vehicles to avoid needing additional human driver equipment, but existing standards remain in force until those are finalised, NHTSA said. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under existing law, fully self-driving vehicles do not need NHTSA approval if they have

NHTSA said Tesla must answer whether temporarily installed human driver controls or other equipment was part of Tesla’s basis for certifying compliance, and other questions. The auto safety regulator said this month it was examining the process and technical data the EV maker relied on to demonstrate compliance with federal motor vehicle safety standards before deploying the robotaxi. Tesla and other robotaxi companies including Google’s Waymo have backed plans by President Donald Trump’s administration to change regulations so that such vehicles do not need to have steering wheels, brake pedals, rear-view mirrors or other equipment required by human drivers. Critics of robotaxis oppose the changes, saying the rules should not be waived until the companies prove that autonomous vehicles are safe. NHTSA asked Tesla to confirm whether the Cybercab robotaxis are capable of being driven by a human driver and if there are any controls in

People look as a gold-colored Tesla Cybercab arrives for an event in downtown Austin, Texas. – REUTERSPIX steering wheels, brake pedals, mirrors and other features of human-controlled vehicles.

human controls. In July, NHTSA approved a petition for Amazon’s Zoox unit for limited commercial deployment of its novel steering wheel-free robotaxis, a first for the autonomous ride industry. – Reuters

NHTSA has authority to grant petitions to allow up to 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer yearly to operate on US roads without required