# SoftBank and ABB Consider Excluding China From Robotics Deal After Beijing Security Review Blocks It

China accounts for about 30% of ABB's robotics business, and the review reportedly focused on supply chains, intellectual property and transfers of robot data abroad for AI training.

- Published: 2026-11-08T05:20:24.935Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/2026-11-08/softbank-and-abb-consider-excluding-china-from-robotics-deal
- Publisher: Polylog (Global desk)
- Section: tech
- Sources: [The Japan Times](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/11/08/companies/softbank-abb-china-carve-out/), [The Japan Times (Business)](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/11/07/economy/japan-priority-items-investments/), [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3373664/hong-kong-makes-further-roads-ai-aviation-mainland-chinese-expo)

Beijing has used its foreign-investment security review to stop a major Japanese acquisition of a European company. SoftBank and ABB are [considering removing the China business](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/11/08/companies/softbank-abb-china-carve-out/) from SoftBank's planned $5.4 billion purchase of ABB's robotics division. China's Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review, which is housed in the National Development and Reform Commission, prohibited the acquisition of ABB's robotics operations in China. The deal had already cleared China's competition review and EU approval.

Beijing has not published its reasons. The Financial Times, as summarized by other outlets, reported that the reviewers focused on [supply chains, manufacturing capacity and intellectual property](https://investinglive.com/stocks/china-blocks-softbank-s-5-4-billion-abb-robotics-deal-ft-says-in-blow-to-son-s-ai-push/), and on the risk that robot operating data could be sent abroad and used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models. Reports say China is ABB's largest robotics market, at about 30% of the business. SoftBank shares fell about 7% on the news. Some coverage pointed to diplomatic friction between Beijing and Tokyo, but China has not publicly linked the decision to it.

Tokyo is pursuing the same industries through public spending. The Japanese government picked [28 priority items from a list of 62 products and technologies](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/11/07/economy/japan-priority-items-investments/), including semiconductors and AI, for an investment program of ¥370 trillion. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's chief executive, had presented the ABB purchase as central to his push into AI-driven physical automation.

China is meanwhile drawing Hong Kong further into its own technology base. At China's international import expo in Shanghai, industry figures described how Hong Kong is [deepening ties with the mainland in AI, aviation and professional services](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3373664/hong-kong-makes-further-roads-ai-aviation-mainland-chinese-expo). The message is consistent: foreign capital is welcome in China's AI and automation sectors if the data, the know-how and the production capacity stay inside China's jurisdiction.

## What this means

The constraint operates through jurisdiction over data and production. Beijing is treating industrial robots, and the operating data they generate, as strategic assets that cannot leave Chinese control, much as Washington treats advanced chips. Multinationals with large China units are exposed, because any sale of a global division can now be split at China's border. That pushes buyers toward deals that exclude China and leaves the China units to be sold to local owners at prices Beijing effectively shapes. The precedent runs the other way: the US Committee on Foreign Investment has for years forced Chinese buyers to give up US assets, and the approach now applies in both directions. This supports the desk's working thesis that AI and compute are becoming instruments of state power. The desk's read is that SoftBank completes a deal that excludes China within months, with the China unit sold to or partnered with a Chinese company, and that more cross-border industrial-technology deals get structured with a separate China portion from the start. A Chinese approval of the full deal after a resubmission would prove this wrong, because it would show the block was a bargaining position tied to relations with Japan and not a fixed policy.

## What to watch

- Whether SoftBank resubmits the deal or announces a buyer for ABB's China unit. A Chinese buyer would confirm that Beijing's aim is local ownership of the technology.
- Other pending foreign acquisitions with large China operations in automation or AI hardware. More rulings that exclude China would make the practice standard.
- Japan's spending decisions under the 28-item investment list. Large allocations to robotics would show Tokyo trying to build at home the capacity it cannot buy in China.