Biden's 'Dictator' Comments, AI Caution Are Weighing On US-Listed Chinese Stocks: 5 To Watch

Chinese stocks listed on U.S. exchanges fell on Thursday in the aftermath of a pivotal summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

Particularly galling for tech investors was the lack of any easing on tariffs for goods such as semiconductors and electric vehicle battery parts, and comments regarding the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

• Baidu BIDU, which specializes in tech products including AI, was down 3.7%.
• NIO NIO, the EV carmaker, fell 8.5%.
• Tech giant Alibaba BABA was down more than 9% in afternoon trading, despite reporting market-beating third-quarter earnings.
• Tech infrastructure company VNET Group VNET was down 20%.

The Biden-Xi summit was, in the main, cordial and productive: Agreements on military communication and halting fentanyl trafficking were reached. But in a post-summit speech, Biden made potentially damaging remarks in which he called Xi a “dictator”.

This attracted comment from China’s foreign ministry, which said in a statement it “strongly opposes” the dictator description and that it was “irresponsible political manipulation.”

In all, it was a down day for China in the markets. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was down 1.4%, while the iShares MSCI China ETF MCHI, which tracks Chinese shares, fell 3.9%.

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