How China is building financial leverage over all Americans - Josh Rogin

How China is building financial leverage over all Americans - Josh Rogin

"But did you know that millions of Americans are currently - often unwittingly - betting their financial futures on the future success of the Chinese government's strategy? Without much oversight or consideration of the risks, Wall Street institutions are steering trillions of American investors' dollars toward Chinese companies that are complicit in China's military expansion and gross human rights abuses.

"Congress is now making an effort to force these Wall Street firms to stop exposing American investors' financial futures to Chinese companies that are not only beholden to the Chinese Communist Party but also in many cases directly involved in repression. The Chinese government is hoping Americans don't realize what's going on until it's too late.

"In August, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote to Michael Kennedy, the chairman of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB), which administers the pensions of more than 5 million federal employees and military service members. They demanded he reverse the board's decision to steer over $50 billion in the federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) toward China. "