A Chinese technology company has expressed interest in buying Seagate Technology, maker of computer disk drives in the United States, raising concerns among American government officials about the risks to national security in transferring high technology to China.
William D. Watkins of Seagate Technology disclosed the possible deal. Seagate is one of the two remaining disk driver makers in the United states. Western Digital is another maker. Seagate's shares rose 1.05 percent Friday to close at $24.96 and were up about 4 percent for the week after news that it might enter the flash memory market
With a booming economy and $1.33 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves, Chinese companies are in a position to acquire American companies, as Japanese and West European companies were several decades ago. While those earlier acquisitions were often opposed out of fears that they would damage American economic competitiveness, the acquisition of American companies by Chinese companies is regarded with more suspicion, particularly in the high-tech sector. (Source: John Markoff, New York Times, Aug 25, 2007).