Several states are divesting their public pension funds from China amid growing public distrust of the regime in Beijing, although billions of retirement dollars remain invested in the communist nation.
The divestment move follows U.S. concerns amid reports of Chinese nationals attempting to breach military bases and buy land near them.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping receives similarly negative ratings, according to the survey.
The study found that 50 percent of Americans label China as a competitor, while 43 percent consider the country an enemy of the United States.
Even as some U.S. investors decouple from China, many states continue to sink money into the country because they aren’t considering the risks of a “rigged” communist system, King told The Epoch Times.
State investment managers may seek the best profit without considering that what looks good on paper may not be a reality when it comes time to cash in on an investment, he said.
“If the [Chinese regime] decrees or decides they don’t want to give your money back, guess what, you don’t get your money back,” King said.
Such a scenario could be devastating to U.S. retirees.
King said that national security is another issue that investors should consider.
To invest in high-return Chinese companies that Beijing subsidizes, U.S. investors must give access to intellectual property and operating software in most cases, he said.
“The quid pro quo to get access [to Chinese investments] means that you have to give up technology,” he said.
The Future Union report—which examined public and private databases, including Crunchbase, Capital IQ, and Private Equity International—focuses on the largest U.S. pension funds investing in China.
Over the past 36-month period, U.S. public pensions have invested more than $68 billion in China, according to the report.
Some question the wisdom of withdrawing investments from China, the world’s second-largest economy.
Jason Isaac, a senior fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and CEO of the American Energy Institute, pointed out that pensioners have already lost money in the shaky Chinese real estate market.
Country Garden and Evergrande Group, Chinese property development firms, lost hundreds of millions of dollars in valuation in the past two years because the real estate market collapsed in China, Isaac told The Epoch Times.
“So we have American firefighters, teachers, police officers that are propping up Chinese companies that are tanking,” he said.
Isaac said the public needs to understand that China demands something in return for the opportunity to invest.
If U.S. companies want to do business in China, they are required to share information and access to operating software with the Chinese Communist Party, he said.
That prompted the passage of a federal law signed by President Biden in April forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban.
States that invest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds are more likely to invest in Chinese businesses because large investment groups such as BlackRock generally give Chinese companies higher ESG scores than U.S. companies, Issac told The Epoch Times.
More states need to pass laws to pull their public pensions and university investments from China, he said.
Alexander Gray, chief financial officer of American Global Strategies, an international advisory firm, agreed.
Chinese companies aren’t subject to the same type of corporate accounting practices and financial oversight used in Western countries, which poses a risk for retirees, he said.
“I think it’s dangerous to rely on such a fundamentally flawed system for people’s livelihoods,” Gray told The Epoch Times. Chinese equities directly aid and abet Chinese military and surveillance capabilities, he added.
In 2019, the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System had stakes in Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, according to wire reports.
Hikvision is a Chinese state-owned manufacturer that supplies video surveillance equipment for civilian and military purposes.
It was blacklisted under President Donald Trump because it allegedly profited from surveillance of Uyghurs in detention camps in China’s Xinjiang region.
“We’ve had examples of American public employee pension retirement funds supporting the national Chinese shipbuilding company that’s building the Chinese navy that could one day be killing American sailors in the South China Sea,” Gray said.
Last summer, the Biden administration issued an executive order blocking investment in specific Chinese sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum computing.
In November 2023, pressure from Republican lawmakers prompted the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, the main U.S. government pension fund, to announce that it would stop investing in Hong Kong- and China-listed stocks.
Gray said the federal government should do more to assist states that are trying to stop the CCP with an assortment of policies.
“That’s never ideal when each state, which doesn’t usually have the expertise, is having to figure this out on their own.”
