{"id":1752061,"date":"2022-11-26T07:36:35","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T12:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1752061"},"modified":"2022-11-26T10:18:13","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T15:18:13","slug":"blackrock-invests-state-retirement-funds-in-chinese-firms-tied-to-uyghur-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/blackrock-invests-state-retirement-funds-in-chinese-firms-tied-to-uyghur-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackrock Invests State Retirement Funds in Chinese Firms Tied to Uyghur Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fblackrock-invests-state-retirement-funds-in-chinese-firms-tied-to-uyghur-genocide%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1752061&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\"><span>A report published by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hongkongwatch.org\/all-posts\/2022\/11\/21\/embargoed-hkw-report-finds-that-14-us-state-pension-funds-are-passively-funding-crimes-against-humanity-in-xinjiang\"><span>Hong Kong Watch<\/span><\/a><span> and Professor Laura T. Murphy of the University of Sheffield Hallam on Monday found that dozens of American, British, and Canadian state pension funds are passively invested in Chinese companies that face credible accusations of enslaving Uyghur Muslims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"a8d-pre\"><span>The report, entitled <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/58ecfa82e3df284d3a13dd41\/t\/637b54c19cc1b650571ce680\/1669027028401\/FINAL+NOV+21+CORRECTED.pdf\"><i><span>Passively Funding Crimes Against Humanity: How Your Savings May Be Financing Internment Camps and Forced Labor in China<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>, <\/span><\/i><span>identified 13 Chinese companies listed on three vital Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indexes that use forced Uyghur labor provided by Chinese state-sponsored programs, or have been involved in the construction of concentration camps for the Uyghurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>China is currently engaging in genocide against the Uyghur people and other non-Han communities in East Turkistan, a western region under Chinese communist occupation the regime refers to as Xinjiang.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>One of the companies spotlighted by the report is Foxconn Technology, the Taiwan-based company whose enormous plant in Zhengzhou, China, is the world\u2019s largest facility for assembling Apple iPhones. The authors cited documentation that shows \u201chundreds of Uyghur workers have been transferred to Foxconn factories,\u201d including the one in Zhengzhou, where they have \u201creportedly been required to work at least 100 hours of overtime every month.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"a8d-pre\"><span>\u201cFoxconn participates in the \u2018Xinjiang Aid\u2019 scheme, and Uyghur workers are under constant surveillance, subject to patriotic re-education, and expected to express gratitude to the Communist Party,\u201d the authors noted.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_22122061\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-1240578058-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-22122061\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-1240578058-1.jpg\" alt=\"Members of Muslim Uyghur minority present pictures of their relatives detained in China during a press conference in Istanbul, on May 10, 2022. - Turkey&#039;s Uyghur community urged UN human rights chief to probe so-called \" re-education camps \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>File\/Members of Muslim Uyghur minority present pictures of their relatives detained in China during a press conference in Istanbul, on May 10, 2022. Turkey\u2019s Uyghur community urged the U.N. to probe so-called \u201cre-education camps\u201d during a long-delayed visit to China this month including to Xingjiang, where Western lawmakers have accused Beijing of genocide. (OZAN KOSE\/AFP via Getty)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou is currently in the headlines because many of its workers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2022\/11\/01\/desperate-chinese-workers-escape-coronavirus-lockdown-at-worlds-largest-iphone-factory\/\"><span>fled<\/span><\/a><span> a brutal coronavirus lockdown, and those who remain are <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2022\/11\/23\/china-coronavirus-lockdown-riot-shuts-down-worlds-largest-iphone-factory\/\"><span>rioting<\/span><\/a><span> against poor living conditions and abusive labor practices. Apple is warning customers worldwide that iPhone supplies could be significantly delayed due to the unrest at the Zhengzhou plant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspi.org.au\/report\/uyghurs-sale\"><span>Xinjiang Aid<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d is the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s official euphemism for its abusive Uyghur policies. China claims the massive concentration camps dotting Xinjiang province are merely \u201cvocational training schools\u201d that just happen to be surrounded by barbed-wire fences for no particular reason. The concentration camps hosted as many as 3 million people at their peak, but have since shipped thousands out to work in factories across the country as slaves. The Communist Party openly sells Uyghur slaves to companies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/04\/17\/report-online-uyghur-slave-trade-booming-in-china\/\">online<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Xinjiang Aid presents China\u2019s slavery programs as the benevolent Communist state offering free transportation to exciting job opportunities in other provinces for the graduates of these grim \u201cvocational schools,\u201d where they work for minimal-to-no pay and have no control over the terms of their employment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"a8d-pre\"><span>The report lists investment funds that hold equities in the offending Chinese companies, a list that unfortunately includes \u201csome of the largest private pension fund managers and important local public pension funds in the U.K., Canada, and USA.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>\u201cGiven MSCI\u2019s popularity as a global benchmark for emerging markets, this list does not include all funds that are invested in these indexes; other funds may be equally exposed,\u201d the authors noted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Topping the list were funds managed by BlackRock, HSBC, UBS, Invesco, and Deutsche Bank, all of which were invested in six Chinese companies documented to employ forced labor, plus six companies involved in the \u201cconstruction of repressive infrastructure\u201d in the Chinese province of Xinjiang where the Uyghurs live.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The full list included 18 major international asset managers, 11 U.S. state pension funds, 4 Canadian pension funds, and 8 U.K. pension funds, plus two pension funds in New Zealand and Japan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The U.S. pension funds included the immense California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System (CalPERS), the New York State Teachers fund, and investment or retirement funds in Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_21503326\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Rally-Held-Outside-White-House.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21503326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Rally-Held-Outside-White-House.jpg\" alt=\"Uyghur Genocide\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>File\/Salih Hudayar (R), founder of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, leads a rally outside the White House to urge the United States to end trade deals with China and take action to stop the oppression of the Uyghur and other Turkic peoples August 14, 2020 in Washington, DC.\u00a0 (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>The report noted that only three of the Chinese companies it highlighted for abuses are currently covered by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2022\/06\/21\/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-meant-to-keep-china-slave-cotton-out-of-u-s-goes-into-effect\/\"><span>Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act<\/span><\/a><span> (UFLPA), a U.S. law that took effect in June. The UFLPA requires importers to prove that products harvested or manufactured in Xinjiang are not tainted with forced labor, a much higher standard than previous import controls.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThis is a noticeable blind spot, given the publicly available data that can be accessed about every firm listed. The U.S. government should expand the lists to ensure that companies known to be complicit in forced labor are excluded from importing goods under the UFLPA,\u201d the report advised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The authors also advised the U.S. government to \u201charmonize\u201d the UFLPA with the list of entities covered by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/system\/files\/126\/14032.pdf\"><span>Executive Order 14032<\/span><\/a><span>, a June 2021 order that banned investment in Chinese entities associated with human rights abuses and the rising security threat of the \u201cmilitary-industrial complex of the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The authors noted that UFLPA does not ban investments, so until it is harmonized with Executive Order 14032, it is possible for Americans to invest in firms whose imports are banned because they engage in slavery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The report made similar recommendations to the European Union and Canada, advising the creation of carefully vetted \u201centities that are known to be involved in state-imposed forced labor in the Uyghur region\u201d and using this master list to apply harmonized bans on \u201cpublic procurement, pension, government investment, and imports.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cLawmakers and government officials must urgently consider how it could be morally defensible for federal employees\u2019 pensions to be passively invested in companies complicit in gross human rights violations in the Uyghur Region,\u201d the report said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c13 companies on MSCI\u2019s emerging markets index are either known to have directly used forced labor through China\u2019s forcible transfer of Uyghurs, or been involved in the construction of camps,\u201d said Hong Kong Watch co-founder Johnny Patterson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cGiven this Index is the most widely tracked Emerging Markets index in the world, it raises serious questions about how seriously international financial institutions take their international human rights obligations or the \u2018S\u2019 in ESG,\u201d he contended.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>ESG stands for \u201cEnvironment, Social, and Governance Investing.\u201d The concept was introduced precisely to avoid the kind of passive investing in support of human rights abuses documented by Murphy and Hong Kong Watch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>One of the report\u2019s recommendations for Western corporations was to universally blacklist \u201cfirms complicit in genocide, crimes, against humanity, or moder-day slavery\u201d from global indexes used by public pension funds and private investors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Patterson said firms \u201cknown to use modern slavery, or known to be complicit in crimes against humanity\u201d should be classified as untouchable \u201csin stocks,\u201d like tobacco.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cGovernments have a duty to signal which firms are unacceptable, but international financial institutions must also be doing their full due diligence. It is unacceptable that enormous amounts of the money of ordinary pensioners and retail investors is being passively channeled into firms that are known to use forced labor,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Murphy, a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at the Helena Kennedy Center for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, said investing in the Chinese companies identified by her research is both a \u201cserious ethical risk\u201d and a financial risk, because \u201cthese companies have been targeted by government sanctions and international advocacy campaigns.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_18499314\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/FCuWWlBXIAUgvbC.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18499314\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/FCuWWlBXIAUgvbC.jpg\" alt=\"Setiwaldi Abdukadir holds up a shirt asking Muslims to pray for Uyghur victims of genocide in China in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in October 2021.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>File\/Setiwaldi Abdukadir holds up a shirt asking Muslims to pray for Uyghur victims of genocide in China in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in October 2021. (Getty)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>\u201cSo many people\u2019s pensions, retirement funds, and savings are invested passively because, as average consumers, we don\u2019t have time to investigate each and every investment,\u201d she observed. \u201cNo one should be passively invested in the oppression of the Uyghurs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe brands called out in this report stand as a cautionary tale for what can happen when companies do business in opaque or high-risk geographies without appropriate and continuous human rights due diligence,\u201d said Anita Dorett, director of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/investorsforhumanrights.org\/\"><span>Investor Alliance for Human Rights<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cMillions of Uyghur and other Turkic, Muslim-majority peoples are subject to egregious human rights abuses, and the financial and human rights performance of companies and their investors are put at risk. When it comes to respecting human rights, there can be no such thing as a passive investor,\u201d Dorett said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThis report should be a wake-up call to every asset manager and pension fund. Investors should require companies they are invested in to fully trace their supply chains and urgently divest from any links to the Uyghur Region or to forced labor transfers from the Region,\u201d declared Rushan Abbas, executive director of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/campaignforuyghurs.org\/\"><span>Campaign for Uyghurs<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Abbas urged investment indexes like MSCI to delist companies linked to slavery, \u201cso that average citizens do not need to worry that they are funding crimes against humanity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/canada\/2022\/11\/21\/is-your-pension-plan-funding-human-rights-abuses-in-china.html\">Toronto Star<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>reported on Monday that Canada Pension Plan, one of the funds described as passively investing in the Uyghur genocide, rejected the report\u2019s conclusions and insisted it has vigorous safeguards against investing in foreign companies that abuse human rights.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe might use different programs to track an index, but we do that through a synthetic process of derivatives, and that means we\u2019re not actually invested in the companies that make up the index,\u201d said Michel Leduc, senior managing director of public affairs for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Hong Kong Watch policy and advocacy director Sam Goodman countered that his report\u2019s data on the Canada Pension Plan is accurate, and does show the plan making over $13 billion in passive investments in Chinese firms linked to forced labor. He invited the investment board to furnish any updated information that might dispute the report\u2019s conclusions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIf the situation has changed and CPPIB has divested from any exposure to MSCI China and MSCI Emerging Markets, we would welcome clarification of their position and the publication of the full listing of new holdings on its website,\u201d Goodman said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"video-src-attr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/author\/kzindulka\/\">Kurt Zindulka<\/a> \/ Breitbart News<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Other analysts and Canadian lawmakers told the\u00a0<em>Toronto Star\u00a0<\/em>that the Canadian government should create lists of banned entities like the United States does to make it easier for fund managers to avoid passively investing in forced labor \u2013 and make it easier for individuals to know when their pension funds are making such investments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible for someone sitting here in this part of the world to look at a company and understand its level of support for the Chinese military or the abuses in Xinjiang, if you don\u2019t have good Chinese and research skills. Institutions have internal process, but most are skewed toward compliance, not toward ethical good governance,\u201d explained Control Risks senior partner Dane Chamorro.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn China, technology companies are selling surveillance technology to not only the Chinese government but also globally in areas that some business investors would find uncomfortable. Is this defensible to stakeholders? What\u2019s acceptable two years ago may not be acceptable today so it\u2019s a moving piece,\u201d Chamorro said.<\/p>\n<p>Another Canadian fund listed in\u00a0<em>Passively Funding Crimes Against Humanity,\u00a0<\/em>the Civil Service Superannuation Board (CSSB) of Manitoba, declined comment when contacted by the\u00a0<em>Toronto Star,\u00a0<\/em>as did Morgan Stanley and the office of Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report published by Hong Kong Watch and Professor Laura T. Murphy of the University of Sheffield Hallam on Monday found that dozens of American, British, and Canadian state pension<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1752064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1752064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}