CalPERS, California’s public pension system, is in hot water as reports show that the Golden State has more than $3 billion shares linked to Chinese companies, 14 of these blacklisted by the Trump administration.
According to the report, California has $450 million invested in 14 blacklisted companies and another $490 million invested in seven companies owned by the Chinese administration.
These connections raised a lot of questions. The China Communications Construction Company, which is one of the companies where CalPERS has invested with about $6 million, is state-owned and is reportedly associated with building military installations in the South China Sea.
Former Secretary Mike Pompeo aired his thoughts about this company, saying, “CCCC led the destructive dredging of the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] South China Sea outposts and is also one of the leading contractors used by Beijing in its global ‘One Belt One Road’ strategy.
CCCC and its subsidiaries have engaged in corruption, predatory financing, environmental destruction, and other abuses across the world. The PRC must not be allowed to use CCCC and other state-owned enterprises as weapons to impose an expansionist agenda.”
Some of CalPERS’ other investments include $3.7 million in China Merchants Port and $110 million in CITIC, both operating in ports used in the People’s Liberation Army’s military exercises.
CalPERS declined to comment when contacted about the issue, but these details were made public from the entity’s 2020 investment report with some investments occurring as early as 2016.
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In a statement to Fox News, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and competitor of California governor Gavin Newsom demands answers.
“It’s outrageous that Gavin Newsom’s administration would allow hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s pension system to be invested into the totalitarian Chinese communist government’s entities.
This demands immediate answers from Newsom and further shows why he can no longer be trusted to lead. We are going to recall him on September 14 and I look forward to cleaning up this mess when I am elected Governor.”
Newsom’s office has not responded to the comment.
