U.S. House committee flags MSCI, BlackRock for China investments

BEIJING — U.S. investments in round 50 blacklisted Chinese language firms have drawn the eye of the U.S. Home of Representatives Choose Committee on the Chinese language Communist Celebration.

The committee on Tuesday introduced it despatched separate letters to MSCI and BlackRock asking for extra details about the companies’ facilitation of U.S. investments into these Chinese language firms.

The Chinese language firms have been blacklisted over claims of supporting China’s army or alleged human rights abuses, the committee stated. It famous the preliminary assessment didn’t embrace one of many largest blacklists, the U.S. Division of Commerce’s Entity Record.

“The true scale is probably going a lot bigger,” the letters stated.

MSCI stated in an announcement it’s reviewing the request for info, and that it does not “facilitate” investments in any nation. “MSCI indexes measure the efficiency of fairness markets accessible to worldwide buyers, and adjust to all relevant US legal guidelines,” the indexing large stated.

BlackRock didn’t instantly reply to a CNBC request for remark.

Here is the complete record of names, that are primarily state-owned firms:

The U.S. Home committee estimated that 5 BlackRock funds have invested greater than $429 million into the blacklisted names. These firms additionally accounted for almost 5% of the MSCI China A Index’s worth as of March 1, the committee stated.

The request for info comes because the U.S. has elevated its scrutiny of economic ties with China.

Final week, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly backed laws that might require U.S. companies to inform the Treasury when investing in superior Chinese language expertise on nationwide safety issues. An earlier model of the laws had known as for funding restrictions.

President Joe Biden has lengthy been anticipated to concern an govt order that might limit U.S. funding in high-end Chinese language tech. No motion has but been introduced.

Final month, the Home committee stated it despatched letters to 4 U.S. enterprise capital companies over their investments into Chinese language synthetic intelligence, semiconductor and quantum computing firms.

The committee cited allegations that China was utilizing such applied sciences for army growth or perpetuation of human rights abuses.

Beijing has denied such abuses, and revealed claims of “human rights violations in america.”