BEIJING – A mounting dispute between Washington and Beijing over access to records of Chinese companies with U.S.-traded shares might force major corporate names such as oil giant PetroChina and search engine Baidu to withdraw from U.S. stock exchanges.

The dispute highlights the clash between heightened U.S. anti-fraud efforts and official Chinese secrecy despite Beijing’s desire to profit from deeper links with the global economy.

This month the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the Chinese affiliates of five major accounting firms of impeding fraud investigations of nine companies by failing to hand over documents.