[Moderating]
Let’s make this official. The OP is about what can be done. That’s a factual question. It is not about what should be done, which is a GD question. If you don’t have input on the factual question, don’t post. Or if you can’t resist addressing the GD questions, do so in GD.
This Reuters article from October 2017 talks about $900 billion in foreign investments, mostly in infrastructure projects in many countries. And then there are other investments like the ownership of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel by the Anbang Insurance Group, a private Chinese company.
Take note of what happened when Canada detained the daughter of the Huawei CEO at the request of the USA, for extradition for the USA on charges of violating N.Korea sanctions. (In fact, for fraud for -allegedly - lying to US banks about a company’s involvement). She sits in house arrest in Vancouver, while China arrested two prominent Canadians on trumped up espionage charges (and continue to hold them) and threatened to execute a third who was convicted of drug smuggling. The Chinese, thanks to two centuries of being walked over by the West and Japan, do not suffer quietly - they will retaliate in kind.
China has a number of assets in assorted countries as all the previous answers point out. To confiscate those would leave the USA open to retaliatory confiscations. Also remember that the USA has a number of intangible assets - for example, the Chinese might declare US drug patents forfeit and produce cheap knock-offs that many third-world countries would be happy to purchase. The Chinese so far are playing by the rules with patents in order to be part of the global market.
Plus there’s the matter of assessing blame. And assessing damages. There’s a good chance that much of the early warning was suppressed by local officials - having bad things happen in your province is a career (and life) limiting move, so bad publicity is suppressed up and down the chain of command.
Then there’s the question of whose assets? Does a judgement against the government give you the right to seize the property of a Chinese corporation? What percentage does the government have to won for that to happen? How would you prove the government owns it, and not the local workers? (IIRC some of the “government corporations” of the communist era are technically owned by their labor unions.) Some like Huawei are technically independent corporations, as their management claims.
I have heard of cases where a national airline’s jets were seized for non-payment in a lawsuit (some African nation, IIRC) but that’s more of an explicit government ownership. When Allende expropriated Chilean copper mines, American companies seized the ore shipments in the Rotterdam while the case was being argued, effectively cutting off a major source of hard currency for Chile. But for example, could someone suing the USA seize newly built airbuses bound for Delta Airlines or subway cars bound for the New York MTA?
best case for those suing would be a decade-long court case, and meanwhile target assets like real estate and corporations would continue to function in situ.
Dirigistic. Wow.
Okay, dirigiste.