German engineering and technology group Siemens has seen a change in investment behavior towards China among some clients amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, CEO Roland Busch said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

According to the head of Siemens, an industrial giant with 311,000 employees and whose decisions are seen as an indicator of the health of the global industrial sector, customers are increasingly interested in building their new facilities elsewhere than China, according to Agerpres.

Tensions between the authorities in Washington and Beijing increased after the Biden administration announced new restrictions on American technology investments in China on Wednesday.

“We don’t see our customers leaving China. On the contrary, we see our customers, local and international, trusting the Chinese market and staying there,” Roland Busch told reporters. “Do they make new investments in China? Here we see a trend according to which they would rather go to other places, to diversify their operations and improve their resilience”, added Roland Busch.

Even as Siemens continues to invest in China, which is its third largest market, the German company is also spending more elsewhere in Asia, the US and Europe.

However, it is far too early to say what the impact of the new measures announced by the US will be, Busch appreciated, adding that the German group is carefully following the developments. “We don’t see a direct impact on Siemens because the targeted areas don’t really affect us. It has more to do with high-end technology, semiconductors and things like that. We hope that the statements of the US administration still stand. They spoke of erecting a narrow but very tall fence. So they would be very selective about the technologies they consider,” said Roland Busch.