You may be surprised, shocked even, to know that 20 Chinese Communist companies are operating — and raising funds — in the United States.
On June 25 the Pentagon released a list of these companies. Many of them are tied directly to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). They are publicly traded in the U.S. capital markets, and, even more shockingly, they are not subject to the federal securities laws to which other companies are subject.
A new report from the RWR Advisory Group describes the companies listed by the Pentagon. These companies, such as AviChina, CSIC, Hikvision, Inspur, and Huawei have “involvement in the illegal building and militarization of islands in the South China Sea; and track records of human rights abuses, advanced weapons manufacturing, proliferation, cyber-attacks and other malevolent behavior” such as espionage, in the case of Chinese social media platform, TikTok.
Congress commissioned this list in 1999, “pursuant to Section 239 of the National Defense Authorization Act,” according to a new report from the RWR Advisory Group. A June 25 press release from the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC), of which I am a member, explains the significance of this fact in case you miss it:
Congress asked for a list of Chinese Communist companies in the United States, but the Department of Defense “ignored a statutory requirement to disclose the presence inside the United States of companies tied directly or indirectly to the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army” for 21 years!
The CPDC press release describes a letter committee chairman Brian Kennedy sent to President Trump about this alarming situation, telling the President, “We want to express the profound thanks of the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) for your Administration being the first in 21 years to comply with an important statute requiring the Department of Defense to report on the presence in our country of companies tied to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
Now we have proof of “the deep penetration of our nation by its enemies and a warning that cries out for immediate corrective action” on the part of Trump, Kennedy continued. If we can stop this outrage from taking place, we can go a long way towards stopping China in its tracks.
Kennedy urged President Trump to “penalize these CCP PLA -tied corporations,” particularly in light of what the President called “the CCP’s absolute smothering of Hong Kong’s freedom,” as well as other atrocious human right violations and the threats to our own national security. His letter was swiftly followed on June 28 by another open letter from the CPDC, signed by some 90 national security practitioners, subject matter experts, business leaders and other patriots.
In that letter the CPDC explained:
Under Beijing’s intelligence statutes, all PRC companies and nationals are required to conduct espionage, steal intellectual property and technology and otherwise engage in subversion of the motherland’s enemies, including especially the United States, if ordered to do so by their government. Of course, since such activities are part of the mission of the PLA, it must be assumed they are a routine feature of companies it operates here.
The signatories urged Trump to act immediately, hoping that he would use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to penalize the Chinese Communist companies before July 1st when the CCP was expected formally to enact the national security law that would be used “to finish off the last of Hong Kong’s liberties.” Although indications look very positive, the President has not yet acted in such a way to stop these companies from doing business directly or indirectly in the United States or from raising funds or trading on the U.S. capital markets.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas joined the call to the President. On Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Cotton told Bartimoro, “This is an example of what China calls civil-military fusion, where they use cutting-edge civilian companies as fronts to increase their military technology, even in competitive countries like the United States.”
“That needs to stop today,” Cotton declared.
On Thursday, July 2, the Trump Administration took a step in the right direction by applying visa restrictions to present and former CCP officers deemed responsible for threatening Hong Kong’s autonomy.
But the CPDC and others believe that the President can and will do more, just as he did in response to letters that were sent to him in April alerting him to pending transfer of $4.5 billion in US pension funds through the Thrift Savings Plan to Chinese military industrial companies.
I wrote here about that April 25 letter, signed by over 130 influencers. In that case, the scenario was the breathtaking reality that the retirement funds of U.S. military veterans and active service people were going to be transferred into Chinese companies that may well build weapons that kill U.S. soldiers!
As in the words of the CPDC press release on May 6, “Trump Crushes TSP Decision,” we discovered that when President Trump learned of the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) decision, he reportedly declared, “We can’t allow this to move forward. This needs to stop.” And that order to stop TSP came in letters from three of his top subordinates, National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien; National Economic Council Chair, Larry Kudlow; and Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia.
We need the same kind of strong resolve from President Trump on these 20 Chinese Communist companies. Stopping these companies would send an important signal to the people of Hong Kong that the United States stands with them. It would also be an important deterrent to China’s unimpeded human rights and religious freedom violations. Read more at the Committee on the Present Danger: China.
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