State Investment Management Board approves Morrisey’s policy to ban investments in companies controlled by Chinese Communist Party
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Governor Patrick Morrisey has been adamant that many Chinese-owned companies are a threat to America in some way, and now his latest proposed resolution to divest funds from these companies has been adopted.
The state Investment Management Board (IMB), who mostly manages state pension funds, passed that resolution on Thursday.
Morrisey, in a statement, said investing in Chinese companies is taking a roll of the dice.
“The Chinese Communist Party poses a threat to our national security, dodges transparency and legal oversight, and represents a financial risk that we cannot take,” Morrisey said. “With the passage of this resolution, the West Virginia Investment Management Board will not invest in CCP owned or controlled companies and seek to prudently divest of those investments.”
State Treasurer Larry Pack says he and his office are behind Governor Morrisey’s resolution, and it’s their job to protect West Virginians who work hard for their money.
“We’re doing everything we can to protect the funds that are being invested for West Virginians. We want to do everything we can to be good stewards of the responsibility that we’ve been given,” Pack said this week on MetroNews “Talkline.”
Pack says China wants to be the leader of the globe and investing money in their companies makes no sense.
“China has made it quite clear that they’re doing everything they can to, instead of making it a United States-led world, they want it to be a China-led world. So, why should we invest money in China?”
“I think it’s just common sense. It falls in line with a lot of President Trump is trying to do,” Pack continued.
According to Pack, another risk of investing in most Chinese companies is the lack of information Americans will be provided with.
“We’re not just talking about picking on their IBM and Exxon. These companies are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and therefore, the amount of information that they’re able to give out is very opaque,” Pack said. “They tell you what they want to tell you. It’s just not a good long-term investment.”
The state will be asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to look at Chinese companies and give answer as to why they should be allowed to be on the New York Stock Exchange.
Pack says the original decision to allow Chinese companies to list decades ago was to try to influence China to operate less like a communist state.
“The thought process is that as we open up our economy to them, they will start acting more like us. They will move away from being a communist country and they’ll move away from being a country that basically attacks our way of us,” Pack said. “What we’ve seen is they haven’t changed at all. They are absolutely all in on being a communist country. They are all in on being able to dominate the world.”
“What I think it is, we’re just righting a wrong that was made many years ago by previous presidents,” Pack continued.
