Intel CEO Dogged by Decades of China Chip Bets, Board Work (1)

For more than three decades, Lip-Bu Tan invested in the Chinese economic boom, placing the kind of no-brainer bets that enriched venture capitalists and fund managers around the world and across the US.

He set up a venture firm called Walden International based in San Francisco that pumped more than $5 billion into over 600 companies. More than 100 of those investments were made in China, including deals with once-obscure startups such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. — today China’s largest chipmaker — where he served on the board for a decade and a half.

In recent years, as US-China ...