Wednesday, August 2, 2023

AS JOE BIDEN CASHES IN ON SERVING RED CHINA - Nikki Haley Adds Five More Proposals to Policy Platform to Combat Communist China

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Nikki Haley Adds Five More Proposals to Policy Platform to Combat Communist China

Former US ambassador to the UN and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa's 2023 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 28, 2023. (Photo by Sergio FLORES / AFP) (Photo by SERGIO FLORES/AFP via Getty Images)
SERGIO FLORES/AFP via Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has expanded her three-tiered policy platform to combat communist China with five more proposals, including rolling back green energy mandates and handouts implemented under the Biden administration “that are a giveaway to China.” 

Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, issued her new proposals in a press release Monday after Fox News first reported them. Haley sees Biden’s energy emissions mandates as an economic benefit to China regarding its solar panel and electric vehicle manufacturing industries while also furthering American dependence on its chief adversary:

Joe Biden’s green energy mandates and handouts benefit China economically and threaten U.S. national security by making us more dependent on China. Biden’s emission mandates will force Americans to transition off affordable and domestically produced fossil fuels, and instead rely on a China-dominated green energy supply chain for electric vehicles and solar panels. For example, sixty three percent of the batteries installed in EVs in 2022 came from Chinese companies. By 2030, China will make more than twice as many batteries as every other country combined. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), also hands out at least $8 billion in investments involving companies based in or with substantial ties to China.

She is eyeing a rollback of “taxpayer-funded handouts” in the partisan Inflation Reduction Act boondoggle, which does not actually deter inflation despite its name. The legislation established hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy spending that the government can dole out through slush funds, Breitbart News noted.

“The Haley administration will have an all-of-the-above energy policy that prioritizes our national security,” according to the press release.

Another aspect of her platform includes “cut[ting] off Chinese drug trafficking money.” Precursor chemicals used to synthesize fentanyl in Mexico often originate from China, and Haley aims to disrupt the trafficking network by focusing on dealers in the United States, in addition to banning the Chinese social media app WeChat, which the Wall Street Journal reported is used by traffickers in a money laundering scheme where drug producers in Mexico are reimbursed with funds from “associates of the Chinese networks.”

Third, Haley seeks to prevent the U.S. government from purchasing technology from China that she says jeopardizes national security.

She pointed to drones as an example, citing a Cyberscoop report that asserted up to 90 percent of the drones first responders used throughout the country as of 2021 were manufactured by DJI. DJI is a Chinese company reportedly tied to the Chinese Communist Party, as Tablet reported, and it “maintains control over data created and compiled by their products.”

Haley intends to “[g]round all Chinese drones and stop new purchases at every level of government,” in addition to preventing states and cities from “using any federal taxpayer money to purchase Chinese technology that threatens our national security.” She aims to employ products produced by America or its allies in place of Chinese technologies.

Moreover, she seeks to end the Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement (STA) between the United States and China, which has been in place for decades, as Reuters noted in June. The program is set to expire later this month, and there is reportedly a divide in Biden’s State Department over whether or not to renew the agreement for another five years. As China is notorious for intellectual property theft, critics have called for the end of the program.

Haley pointed to a 2018 project under the STA where China and the United States used balloons for research on the atmosphere. In June, U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the CCP Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI), along with nine other members of Congress, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken noting that earlier this year, “the [People’s Republic of China] used similar balloon technology to surveil U.S. military sites on U.S. territory.” The letter urged the State Department not to reenter the deal.

WATCH — Nikki Haley: China “Is the Biggest Threat We’ve Had Since Pearl Harbor”:

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“If Biden chooses to renew it, President Haley will pull the United States out of it,” the candidate’s press release stated.

Lastly, she advocated against lifting any sanctions on China, slamming the CCP as “human rights abusers.” 

“A Haley administration will not take the screws off China for its genocide, trampling of freedom and human rights in Hong Kong, fentanyl production, and military-civil fusion program,” Haley’s release said. 

The five newest additions, first reported by Fox News, accompany Haley’s overarching vision to take on China domestically, economically, and militarily, which she detailed at the American Enterprise Institute in late June. 

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BlackRock, MSCI Draw Congressional Scrutiny for China Investments

Eva Fu
By Eva Fu
August 1, 2023Updated: August 1, 2023
0:005:14

The world’s largest asset manager and leading index provider are facing congressional probes for facilitating American dollars into Chinese companies that the United States has deemed to be fueling Chinese military growth or human rights abuses.

In letters to heads of BlackRock and MSCI, Larry Fink and Henry Fernandez, the top Republican and Democrat on the House China Select Committee made known their investigation of the firms. A brief review of MSCI indexes and BlackRock funds, they said, showed that the two companies together have directed investments into over 60 Chinese entities already on the U.S. blacklist.

In the case of BlackRock, across five funds alone, the asset manager has invested more than $429 million in red-flag Chinese firms, while nearly 5 percent of the MSCI China A Index are pegged to problematic entities. Such numbers, the lawmakers suspect, are only the tip of the iceberg.

As a “direct result” of BlackRock’s and MSCI’s decisions, Americans who invested savings in their funds are now “unwittingly funding” Chinese companies that build weapons for the Chinese military known as the People’s Liberation Army, giving a hand to “the CCP’s stated mission of technological supremacy,” wrote committee chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and ranking member Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) on July 31.

“It is unconscionable for any U.S. company to profit from investments that fuel the military advancement of America’s foremost foreign adversary and facilitate human rights abuses,” the lawmakers wrote, adding that the “massive flows of American capital” to these entities are “exacerbating an already significant national security threat and undermining American values.”

The probe makes up part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into U.S. investments in China, which in July included venture capital firms that have invested in China-based artificial intelligence, semiconductor, and quantum companies.

MSCI logo
The MSCI logo is seen in an illustration photo on June 20, 2017. (Thomas White/Reuters)

A tough stance on China is one of few issues that garner support from both political sides in the deeply divided Congress. The bipartisan House panel, formed in January, makes policy recommendations and has subpoena power, which Mr. Gallagher has said he would use if executives fail to cooperate with the committee probes.

“Both Democrats and Republicans can agree that we should not be funding PLA military modernization, supporting the CCP’s techno-totalitarian surveillance state, nor the CCP’s gross human rights abuses,” a source close to the committee told The Epoch Times.

MSCI has over $13 trillion benchmarked to its products, making it one of the largest index providers globally. BlackRock oversees more than $9 trillion in assets, and is responsible to millions of Americans who depend on its services for their future retirement.

BlackRock told The Epoch Times in a statement that it will continue to engage with the committee on the issues raised and maintained that it “complies with all applicable U.S. government laws” with “all investments in China and markets around the world.”

“Like many global asset managers, BlackRock offers our clients a number of strategies to invest in or exclude China from their portfolios. The majority of our clients’ investments in China are through index funds, and we are one of 16 asset managers currently offering US index funds investing in Chinese companies,” a company spokesperson said.

MSCI, similarly, said it’s reviewing the request for information from the lawmakers.

“MSCI indexes measure the performance of equity markets available to international investors, and comply with all applicable US laws. MSCI does not manage or recommend or facilitate investments in any country,” an MSCI spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

The Chinese entities on MSCI indexes include state-owned aerospace firm Aviation Industry Corporation China, which makes aircraft for the Chinese military; BGI Genomics, a military-linked Chinese gene giant that the United States has found complicit in supporting forced labor; and ZTE, whose telecom equipment the United States banned last year citing national security risks.

BlackRock, meanwhile, has funded a major subsidiary of China General Nuclear Power Group that the U.S. authorities accused of stealing U.S. nuclear technology, as well as that of China North Industries Group Co., producer of artillery shells and munitions for the Chinese military.

The lawmakers said they want to see a list of all the companies on MSCI indexes, and the thinking behind their inclusion, policies, and guidance documents relating to conflicts of interest that BlackRock has applied when engaging with China-linked entities, and details of U.S. investor exposure.

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