Subsequent to the transfer, ARM agreed to sell a majority stake in its Chinese offshoot to local investors for $775.2 million, something of an undervalue, it might reasonably be thought.

We can only speculate on what’s really going on here, but we know of China’s insatiable appetite for Western IP and we also know that as a major investor in Alibaba, China’s version of Amazon, Mr Son’s loyalties are somewhat more tilted to China than they are to the UK.

And I am afraid that this is the way they do business over there. To gain proper access to the Chinese market, Mr Son may have had little option but to surrender control.

Both in the US and in Europe, there is growing concern over cutting edge tech transfer of this sort. China has well aired plans for technological leadership in Artificial Intelligence, autonomous cars, cloud computing, robotics and all other things cutting edge. It has set about pursuing it in characteristically determined fashion, buying up Western tech companies wherever it can, including just recently Britain’s Imagination Technologies.

The EU Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, recently launched legal proceedings against China for failing to offer the same degree of protection on foreign owned IP as it does for domestically owned technology. I suppose if we were being charitable about it, it might be argued that the ARM transfer is for the purpose of gaining the same privileges. Now fully Chinese, the IP can be protected more effectively.