China's top economic planning body has blocked Meta from acquiring Manus AI, a Singapore-based startup with its core technology built in China, in a ruling that ordered the $2 billion-plus deal fully unwound. The decision, issued by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), lands as one of the most direct uses of Chinese regulatory authority to stop American capital from securing a Chinese-origin AI asset.
Manus is a general-purpose AI agent platform whose software can plan and complete complex, multi-step tasks on its own, all without human intervention every step of the way. The startup was founded in China, but then it moved its corporate registration to Singapore before the deal was struck. This sort of maneuver has been described by Beijing officials as 'Singapore washing.' This is not an uncommon practice, where Chinese technology companies reincorporate in a neutral jurisdiction to sidestep regulatory scrutiny while leaving their engineering operations, intellectual property, and talent base in China. Manus' development teams were based in Beijing and Wuhan at the time of the acquisition, according to a NYTimes report.
