WASHINGTON — The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) today issued a joint statement urging Members of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services to prohibit U.S. investors from funding Chinese Military Companies (CMC’s) that the Department of Defense has identified as helping modernize the People’s Liberation Army. They urged the adoption of Representative Ronny Jackson’s (R-TX) amendment to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would accomplish this by immediately subjecting those companies to the capital markets sanctions included in President Biden’s Executive Order 14032.
“As the Committee considers the FY 2022 NDAA, we strongly encourage that any bill reported to the full House include Rep. Ronny Jackson’s amendment prohibiting U.S. investment in Chinese Military Companies. Currently, Chinese companies involved in the buildup and modernization of the People’s Liberation Army are raising funds via U.S. capital markets. The Pentagon has already identified Chinese Military Companies present in U.S. capital markets, but not all of these companies are subject to capital markets sanctions under President Biden’s Executive Order 14032. We urge the Committee to take a firm stand by adopting the Jackson amendment and make clear that Congress will not stand by idly as scores of millions of unwitting U.S. investors help fund the military-industrial complex of the CCP.”
Yesterday, CPA and VOC led a human rights coalition in a letter calling on lawmakers to “immediately put an end to Chinese Military Companies (CMC’s) being funded by millions of unwitting American investors.”
In June, CPA released a statement on President Biden’s Executive Order 14032, which changed former President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13959 that prohibited U.S. investments in Chinese firms listed on the U.S. Department of Defense list of companies supporting China’s military. The Biden administration’s changes to the Trump-era policy widened these capital markets sanctions to include Chinese defense and related materiel sector companies, as well as Chinese companies that develop or use Chinese surveillance technology to facilitate repression or serious human rights abuses. However, the Executive Order now puts the U.S. Treasury Department, rather than the Pentagon, in charge of creating and maintaining a list of “Chinese defense and surveillance technology firms” in which investment by U.S. persons is prohibited.
