How To Defund The Chinese Communist PartyBy: Mike Gallagher
January 11, 2022
In late July, China’s People’s Liberation Army tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. According to reports from the Financial Times, U.S. officials were surprised by the maturity of the Chinese technology. As one source put it: “We have no idea how they did this.”
Yet we do have an idea how they did this, because we know that American technology was used at a Chinese hypersonic test facility that models the heat and drag on hypersonic missiles. The sobering implication: U.S. technology directly contributed to China’s new military capability to strike the American homeland with nuclear and conventional weapons.
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Despite the growing bipartisan consensus on the need for selective technological and financial decoupling from the CCP — and despite dealing with a pandemic from Wuhan that exposed our dangerous dependency on China — Wall Street cannot seem to get enough of the Chinese market.
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Such financial institutions manage trillions worth of assets on behalf of American universities, pensions, and others that have been at the forefront of so-called “ESG” (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing. The ESG movement encourages investors to consider factors such as climate and social impact alongside the financial bottom-line of potential investments.
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Likewise, the University of Michigan recently announced a strategy under which it will cease investing in funds focused on fossil fuels and discontinue investments in publicly traded companies that help drive greenhouse gas emissions. Yet as former Reagan official Roger Robinson has outlined, one-third of Michigan’s venture capital investments, which comprise roughly 15 percent of its $12 billion in assets, are Chinese. Given that Chinese firms contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions than the companies of any other nation on earth, it remains to be seen whether Michigan will hold Chinese polluters accountable or solely single-out western firms.
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Blatant hypocrisy is only part of the problem with American universities and investment firms that lecture Americans about ESG but continue to chase profits in China. The real problem runs deeper – to something that lawmakers can fix.
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This needs to stop. This is why I am crafting legislation to force American university endowments to either divest from China or give up the benefits they receive from the American taxpayer. This provision would also apply to any pension funds that receive tax breaks from the federal government, so that the retirement security of tens of millions of Americans totaling more than $10 trillion is not tied to the success of America’s greatest enemy.
It is time to choose. Are American universities committed to their professed values, or are they willing to profit from the CCP’s ongoing efforts to commit genocide, destroy the environment, and build weapons designed to kill Americans in a future war? The choice should be clear.
Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/11/how-to-defund-the-chinese-communist-party/
