ESG Bully BlackRock Is Funding China’s Nuclear Weapons, Forced Labor, Report Finds

CRAIG BANNISTER | MAY 3, 2024

Despite boycotting U.S. energy firms in the name of its Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) ideology, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is funding China’s U.S.-sanctioned military companies, producers of nuclear weapons and forced-labor enterprises, a new report reveals.

In the U.S., BlackRock discriminates against companies that don’t comply with the radical left’s ESG agenda, which it claims promotes social good.

But, in reality, the multinational corporation managing $10 trillion across five continents funds companies in China that build up the hostile communist regime’s nuclear weapons arsenal and those that enslave and abuse workers, according to a Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) “Case study for Congress” detailing how Wall Street’s offshore companies fund the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

By the numbers, the report quantifies BlackRock’s investments in military aggression and social-rights abuses:

• BlackRock invests in 29 subsidiaries of Chinese Military-Industrial Complex (CMIC) companies presently under Treasury Department sanctions.
• BlackRock’s subsidiary in Hong Kong (an administrative region of the People’s Republic of China) holds $130 million of stock in 14 Chinese Military-Industrial Complex companies that U.S. investors are prohibited from trading.
• BlackRock funds own 18 Chinese companies on the Commerce Department’s Military-End User List or Entity List.
• BlackRock has invested more than $50 million invested across four companies sanctioned under the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) combating the systematic abuse and genocide of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang Province.
• BlackRock has nearly $200 million dollars invested in two companies (China National Nuclear Power and CGN Power) that help produce nuclear warheads capable of striking the continental United States.

 

The report calls out BlackRock for its ESG “double standard,” noting that the mammoth multinational asset manager claims to support social justice and denies contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons:

“BlackRock states that social issues cover human capital management and impacts on the communities in which a company operates, yet it ignores forced labor and genocide in northwestern China by funding business entities sanctioned under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.”…

“BlackRock says it excludes companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons and related delivery systems pursuant to its “environmental, social, governance” (ESG) standards. The reality is that BlackRock holds stock in Chinese companies pursuing an aggressive buildup of nuclear warheads meant to hold United States territory at risk.”

BlackRock’s ties to China have intensified ever since CEO Larry Fink visited China and met with the communist country’s government officials, after which BlackRock has increasing advised and supported the authoritarian regime’s initiatives, the report explains.

Read CAP’s full report here.