the head of the securities and exchange commission is vowing to make chinese companies open their books to us regulators—or risk being delisted from american stock exchanges as soon as 2024 sec chairman gary gensler issued the ultimatum in an interview tuesday with bloomberg news “the path is clear” gensler told the outlet “the clock is ticking” nearly 400 chinese and hong kongbased firms—281 in china and 110 based in hong kong—list their shares on american exchanges and are subject to the holding foreign companies accountable act which was enacted late last year a foreign company that fails to open its books to auditors for three consecutive years will be barred from trading in the us under that timeline noncompliant companies could be delisted as soon as 2024 the sec hadn’t been clear on how aggressively it would enforce the act before gensler’s remarks tuesday some of china’s biggest companies are listed in the us including alibaba group holding ticker baba baidu bidu and didi global didi tension between the us and china has heightened in the past few months by beijing’s regulatory crackdown on chinese tech companies wiping value off a raft of companies the move prompted the sec to temporarily ban chinese companies from raising money in the us unless they can detail their legal structures and provide full disclosure of risks of interference from beijing reuters reported