China Shuts American Chamber Of Commerce In Chengdu — Reuters

xizhimen · Aug 31, 2021

China Shuts American Chamber Of Commerce In Chengdu — Reuters

Russell Flannery
Forbes Staff
Aug 31, 2021,09:44am

China has ordered an American Chamber of Commerce in the western business hub of Chengdu to cease operations, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing officials with the American business organization.

The chamber notified members on Monday that it had to stop operations and "no longer carry out any activities in the name of the American Chamber of Commerce in Southwest China,” in accordance with China rules and regulations, Reuters said.

The statement was seen by Reuters. It didn’t give a specific reason why the chamber it had been instructed to cease operations.

China ordered the closure of the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu in July 2020 in apparent retaliation after the Trump administration ordered the shuttering of the Chinese consulate in Houston.

Chengdu is best known among many travelers globally for its pandas and hotpot cuisine. Its large group of multinational investors include Intel, Texas Instruments and Toyota.

American companies in China have as of late remained optimistic about their prospects in the country, but changing political currents are making it hard to focus solely on business, a former China diplomat and business association leader said at the “U.S.-China Business Forum” organized by Forbes China, the Chinese-language edition of Forbes, earlier this month.

“You have a heavier intrusion of politics” into the commercial landscape, said Kenneth Jarrett, senior advisor to the Albright Stonebridge Group.” Companies just want to go about their business, (but) it’s increasingly difficult for them to have a pure business focus.”

The landscape is “shaped largely by worries about U.S.-China relations. That’s No. 1 on the mind of most companies because it has created a degree of political uncertainty that we haven’t seen for a long time. And that really hasn’t eased, even as we are in month seven of the Biden administration,” said Jarrett, a resident of Shanghai since 2005 who was president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai for five years before joining ASG in 2018.