PRESS ADVISORY
For Immediate Release
April 8, 2022
CONTACTS:
Hamilton Strategies, [email protected],
Beth Harrison, 610.584.1096, ext. 105,
or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102
C.P.D.C. Asks S.E.C. Chairman to Clarify Whether the C.C.P. Will Continue to Have Sweetheart Access to Our Money
Biden-engineered Memorandum Led to U.S. Investors Underwriting the China Threat
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Committee on the Present Danger: China Chairman Brian Kennedy today wrote the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, about one of the most insidious legacies of Joe Biden’s personal “engagement” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): an agreement that granted the CCP’s companies preferential access to U.S. capital markets. Estimates of the size of the windfall thus obtained by America’s most dangerous enemy vary from $1-8 trillion. What is not in question is that, whatever their total amount, such funds – largely transferred to China by Wall Street financiers from unwitting American investors – have been instrumental in enabling the growth and relentless exercise of China’s “unrestricted warfare” against the United States.
As Mr. Kennedy’s letter noted:
“This arrangement was a product of a May 7, 2013 Memorandum of Understanding between the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and its Chinese counterpart (i.e., the China Securities Regulatory Commission) that was negotiated with the active support of then-Vice President Joe Biden. This ill-considered MoU has allowed Chinese companies – including those with material ties to the People’s Liberation Army and entities sanctioned by the U.S. government – to trade and raise funds in our capital markets without complying with U.S. federal securities laws (like Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank) as well as evade disclosure requirements established by the SEC. Of course, their American counterparts do not enjoy a similar right to opt out of such legal compliance and disclosure requirements.”
Chairman Kennedy added: “The Committee on the Present Danger: China has, from its founding, argued that the 2013 MoU was strategically dangerous as it underwrites the intensifying Chinese Communist threat. It is, in addition, perilously risky for U.S. investors – who, as it happens, lost $600 billion or more in China stocks in 2021.”
The Chinese Communist Party has reportedly expressed a willingness to have its U.S.-listed companies comply with PCAOB requirements for accountability and transparency. The object of the CPDC’s letter was to establish the validity of such reports and the likelihood of actual compliance by the CCP. Specifically, the Committee seeks answers from Chairman Gensler to the following questions:
“It is our understanding that the Chinese have signaled that they will now – at long last – voluntarily comply with the PCAOB-administered audits of their companies. Is this correct? If so, has that agreement been formalized? And, either way, are you satisfied that this commitment by Beijing will end the current, inordinate exposure of U.S. investors to potential fraud by Chinese corporations in our capital markets and the prospect of American retail investors holding the securities of high-risk U.S.-sanctioned Chinese enterprises?”
“We have called for President Biden to give notice that the United States will exercise its right to withdraw from that MoU. Can you confirm whether or not the MoU is still in effect? We note that the SEC website no longer allows access to the contents of this agreement and request that you make it publicly available forthwith.”
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CONTACTS:
Hamilton Strategies, [email protected],
Kate Piacentino, 610.584.1096, ext. 105,
or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102