Manus AI, Meta, and the Fate of Indonesia's Digital Platforms
On 27 April 2026, China’s National Development and Reform Commission announced a seemingly simple but historic decision. The acquisition of Manus AI by Meta Platforms, valued at two to three billion US dollars, was prohibited. The parties were ordered to cancel the transaction.
Manus is not an ordinary chatbot. It is a new-generation AI agent capable of receiving complex tasks and executing them autonomously. Researching the web, extracting data, writing code, completing multi-step tasks without human intervention at each stage.
Its parent company, Butterfly Effect, was founded in Beijing in 2022 by Xiao Hong and his colleagues. In mid-2025, the headquarters was relocated to Singapore. This strategy, commonly known as “Singapore washing,” is intended to evade US investment restrictions as well as China’s rules limiting the transfer of intellectual property.
Beijing did not accept that administrative trick. A Global Times editorial explained the logic. What matters is not the place of registration or the current location of the team, but the depth of technological, talent, and data ties to China.
The legal precedent born from this is that jurisdiction follows where the technology was built, not where the company is registered. The message to founders: if you start in China, you remain in China.
I have followed the globalisation narrative since my studies in Japan in the early 1990s. At that time, Japan was still protecting its local rice, while the world, led by the United States, proclaimed the Uruguay Round, NAFTA, and APEC.
The dominant message was clear. Open the borders, eliminate tariffs, let comparative advantage work.
Thirty years later, the paradox is clearly laid out before us. The United States, the most vocal symbol of pushing globalisation throughout the 20th century, is now the pioneer of a new generation of protectionism.
High tariffs against China. Controls on exporting Nvidia’s most advanced chips. Bans on outbound investments to China’s AI sector.
The Monroe Doctrine seizing access to critical minerals in Venezuela. The arrest of President Nicolás Maduro in January 2026, followed two days later by a statement from the US Secretary of Commerce that Venezuela’s steel, minerals, and all critical materials must be “brought home.”
China is retaliating with the same legal language. Investment reviews. Blocking the Manus acquisition. Controls on rare earth exports. Restrictions on strategic founders leaving the country.
The world we have known since APEC and AFTA is shifting. The multilateral WTO rules are de facto no longer governing strategic sectors: semiconductors, AI, critical minerals, biotechnology.