The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a clear and present threat to America. We have competing interests on everything, including political, economic and military values. America stands for freedom – the CCP fights for tyranny.
The CCP is attempting to infiltrate many facets of Americans’ everyday lives. Yet somehow, American taxpayer investments have funded our biggest adversary’s growth for decades.
We’ve led efforts in South Dakota and in Congress to limit the CCP’s threat to American farmland. We’ve each successfully taken steps to ban TikTok on government devices. But there is more that must be done to strengthen America’s national security.
The next key step is prohibiting hard-earned taxpayer dollars from bankrolling China’s threats.
The House Select Committee on the CCP has been active in identifying and confronting threats from the CCP and strategizing the best ways to defend the American people, our economy and our values. And South Dakota has been drawing the blueprint for a state-led response to Communist China.
This summer, the Select Committee opened an investigation into BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and MSCI, a top stock-market-index compiler, for their investment decisions after the committee wrote to them expressing deep concern with their profits from CCP-backed companies. MSCI and BlackRock manage a total of over $22 trillion in assets.
While these investments in Chinese companies can yield a high return, putting our national security at risk is not a wise trade. The ends do not justify the means.
TEAM BIDEN IS CLUELESS ABOUT PROTECTING AMERICA IN AN INCREASINGLY DANGEROUS WORLD
Thankfully, we’ve seen divestment of American taxpayer dollars from CCP-backed companies recently when the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board announced the withdrawal of its investments from companies in the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong. But at the state level, it is harder to divest taxpayer dollars from countries without express consent from the federal government. That’s why the PRC Accountability and Divestment Act of 2023 is necessary.
The bill allows states to divest taxpayer funds from China by giving state and local governments the authority to pull their assets out of and prohibit investments within the PRC. It also provides states and local governments with a safe harbor for changes of investment policies related to the PRC and states a fiduciary of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) plan may divest plan assets from the PRC.
Many states, including ours, are attempting to divest from China. It’s time they have the authority to do so.
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In 2007 and 2010, Congress passed legislation with overwhelming support to allow for the divestment from Sudan and Iran. That was the right decision for those countries. The Chinese Communist Party poses an even more substantial risk to our freedoms. We cannot risk giving the CCP undue access to taxpayer funds.
The CCP’s use of our taxpayer dollars is antithetical to American values. These dollars are used to send spy balloons over our homeland, purchase American farmland, steal Americans’ personal data from apps like TikTok, spy on our allies’ imports and exports, set up CCP police stations in America, and fund illegal biolabs like the one in Reedley, California.
Any penny that ends up in the CCP’s bank account is a cent against American values, freedom and strength. States need the opportunity to divest, and Americans deserve the peace of mind to know where their tax dollars are going and what they are supporting.
America will not stand for the military and human rights abuses the CCP continues to practice, lest we wake up one day to find China has become the new world superpower. Should we continue to invest blindly in the Chinese economy, that could be our reality.
America cannot roll over in the face of tyranny – we will continue to defend and invest in freedom.
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Congressman Dusty Johnson, a Republican, is the at-large representative for South Dakota.
