If Beijing looked past Manus’ initial moves, the sale to an American company made a response harder to avoid.THE WARNING SIGNS WERE CLEARBeijing quickly made known its reservations about the Manus-Meta deal. Following publicity around the acquisition, the Chinese commerce ministry began investigating whether the agreement violated China’s export control, technology transfer and foreign investment laws. On Mar 1, its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology introduced new rules on technology contracts, that give authorities greater oversight and control over such deals. The Financial Times reported in late March that Beijing barred Manus’s chief executive and chief scientist from leaving the…