Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said the California public pension fund has invested $3.1 billion in Chinese companies, some of which have been blacklisted.
His comments came during a Thursday interview on the Fox Business show, “Mornings with Maria.”
“We found out that $3.1 billion out of CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System), the largest state pension fund in the country, has been invested in 172 different Chinese companies. Now, that’s not so unusual in and of itself.
“But what is unusual is that many of these companies are companies that we’ve blacklisted, that make Chinese military equipment or are responsible for technologies like Hikvision, which is the equipment that’s used by the Chinese for surveillance on the Uighur Muslim population that they’ve been abusing in their own country. The more that we’ve dug into this the more troubling it becomes.”
Fox Business noted the Commerce Department blacklisted Hikvision in October “for engaging in or enabling activities contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States.”
"If this were up to me, I would fire (Yu Ben Meng) immediately because of these suspicious ties," Banks said. "We learned that Mr. Meng, who is the chief investment officer of CalPERS, was actually recruited to this position by the (Chinese Communist Party) through something called the Thousand Talents Program. Now he's denied it."
A CalPERS spokeswoman told Reuters the fund stands behind its chief investment officer.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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