U.S. and Canadian Pension Funds’ Positions in Communist China Concepts Stock

CalPERS is the largest public pension fund in the U.S. in terms of assets, managing pensions and health care benefits for California Civil servants, retirees, and their families. The former head of CalPERS, Meng Yu (孟宇), a Chinese-American citizen who has close ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and has participated in the CCP’s “Thousand Talents Program,” had worked back and forth between CalPERS and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange of Communist China, causing considerable controversy regarding his identity and experience.

 CalPERS has invested in many top-tier U.S. custodians, including BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS Group. By the end of 2021, CalPERS still possessed shares of the American Depositary Receipt (ADR) of Aluminum Corporation of China (AlCOA) and Shanghai Petrochemical. Until the end of the second quarter of 2022, CalPERS completely withdrew and liquidated its share positions in the two stocks that have been delisted from the American Stock Exchange. According to CalPERS’ F13 report submitted to the SEC by the end of the second quarter of 2022, it also entirely withdrew its shares in some star Communist China concepts stocks it owned in 2021, such as Alibaba, JD, Baidu, and NetEase. In private placements, CalPERS has invested in PAG, TPG, and CDH, companies all related to the CCP. In addition, CalPERS has investments in Evergrande, the world’s most indebted real estate company, BGI Group, which has been suspected of helping Beijing collect a global gene pool, and Sinopharm, which produces and develops CCP virus vaccines and assists Beijing in vaccine diplomacy.