Troubled Credit Suisse Has Chinese Communist Party-Linked Member on Its Risk Committee

The logo of Swiss bank Credit Suisse at an office building in Zurich, Switzerland, on Sept. 2, 2022. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Credit Suisse bank, which collapsed last week, revealed on its website that it had a CCP-affiliated member on its board of directors.

Shan Li, according to the bank’s website, is a board member with long extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with senior roles on the bank’s risk management team, Asia advisory council, and compensation committee since 2019.

Fox News reported Li’s ties to the CCP on March 17, before UBS offered to buy the failed bank for $3.25 billion last weekend.

Li’s Credit Suisse biography displayed his wide-ranging experience with Beijing-affiliated companies, including his membership on the board of the Silk Road Finance Corporation, which is one of the biggest promoters of the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative campaign, along with previously held high-ranking positions at the state-owned China Development Bank and Bank of China.

He is also noted as a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, which is one of the main organizations in Beijing’s “United Front” overseas influence operations that promotes the CCP’s influence abroad.

Credit Suisse Board Members’ Ties to CCP Intelligence

A U.S. government report from 2018, assembled by the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, called the CPPCC a “critical coordinating body” that runs the many Chinese interest groups abroad and is controlled by the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, according to Fox News.

“The CPPCC, an advisory committee ‘under the leadership of the [CCP],’ is the highest-ranking entity overseeing the United Front system,” wrote the independent federal agency.

“The United Front strategy uses a range of methods to influence overseas Chinese communities, foreign governments, and other actors to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies.”

“A number of official and quasi-official entities conduct overseas activities guided or funded by the United Front, including Chinese government and military organizations,” the report noted.

The CPPCC has long been accused of infiltrating many private and public institutions with an impact on the American economy.

The CEO of the Chinese-owned tech company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, which signed a deal with Ford Motor Company to produce batteries for its electric vehicles last month, was exposed by Fox News as a member of the CPPCC.

Beijing Affiliated Groups’ Influence On White House Energy Policy

Fox News also revealed that Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was accused of privately meeting in June 2021 with John Creyts, the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a CCP-connected group that has been a prime mover in prompting gas stove bans across the country.

The Biden administration, along with several Democrat governors, have been pushing a nationwide phase out of gas-powered stoves and ovens since 2022.

RMI has worked with the Chinese government to study transitioning away from traditional fossil fuels, and the organization’s only office outside the United States is located in Beijing.

The institute is also a member of the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a foreign entity with strong ties to the CCP.

RMI has received millions of dollars from the Department of Energy, including a $4.4 million grant for a laboratory building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in March 2022, while its staff members were allowed to participate in agency events concerning green transportation and sustainability.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a major New York-based nongovernmental organization, which has had a major influence on White House’s green energy agenda, had deep ties to the Chinese government, reported Fox News.

The NRDC has worked on climate policies in mainland China since the mid-1990s, and several of its top officials from the communist state had worked for the CCP or Beijing-sponsored institutions.

The NRDC’s former president, Gina McCarthy, was Biden’s former climate czar, while its current president, Manish Bapna, has been a regular visitor to the White House, according to Fox.

“The ties environmental groups, like NRDC, have to China is something we are continuing to keep close tabs on,” a spokesperson for House Natural Resources Committee chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) told Fox News in a statement last September.

It has been suggested by GOP House members that the NRDC may be in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).