The New York Stock Exchange announced on Jan. 6 that the shares of China’s three largest state-owned telecommunications companies will be halted from Jan. 7 to Jan. 11.
After U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin voiced his opposition on Jan. 5, the NYSE announced on Jan. 6 that it would continue to delist the stocks of China’s three largest state-owned telecom companies, effective Jan. 11. The SEC’s decision on the issue was reversed twice in one week.
The first was the NYSE’s Jan. 1 announcement that it would start the delisting process for China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom (Hong Kong) shares in order to comply with the Washington ban, which was unexpectedly called off abruptly on Jan. 5, shocking the market.
In the announcement on January 1, the NYSE said that the regulator had made a decision that China Mobile, the three Chinese telecom companies, were no longer suitable for listing. The reason is that these three companies are related to the Chinese Communist Party’s military. The shares of these three companies will be suspended from January 7 to 11, after which the delisting process will be initiated.
The three major telecoms Chinese stocks have been delisted in a series of twists and turns, is there a special signal from the NYSE in this move? What are the forces behind this move? This involves cooperation between the Chinese Communist Party and the U.S. telecom industry, and even their role in the current U.S. election.
Three companies, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, which are linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s military, were delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
Why the U.S. is delisting telecom Chinese stocks
The Chinese Communist Party has always taken an “exploitative” approach to foreign investment, and the biggest purpose of Chinese companies going public in the U.S. is to raise capital. at the China International Information and Communication Exhibition in October 2020, the three major telecom operators announced that they had built a total of 680,000 5G base stations in mainland China. CITIC Capital’s communications industry analysis department estimates that operators’ physical investment in 5G network construction will likely reach RMB 1.23 trillion. Faced with such a large capital need, many Chinese communist companies choose to raise capital in the U.S. stock market.
According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC, United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission), as of Oct. 2, 2020, there were 217 Chinese companies listed on the three major U.S. exchanges, with a total market capitalization of $2.2 trillion or more.
At the end of 2020, the U.S. made two moves against Chinese companies listed in the U.S. One was on Nov. 12, when President Trump signed Executive Order 13959, “Addressing the Threat From Securities Investments That Finance Communist Chinese Military Companies. That Finance Communist Chinese Military Companies. The Executive Order prohibits U.S. companies or individuals from investing in companies with a Communist Chinese military background beginning on January 11, 2021. More than 31 Chinese companies have already been added to this list of restrictions, including these three telecommunications companies. Another bill, the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, was signed into law by Trump on Dec. 18. The act requires companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to declare that they are not owned or controlled by any foreign government.
Ten days later, on December 28, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that all “subsidiaries” of CCP military companies and funds that hold securities of CCP military companies are subject to the restrictions, and may further list entities that are more than 50% controlled by CCP military companies in the future.
Telecommunications Chinese stocks are controlled by the Communist Party of China, using U.S. funds to develop the military
In terms of the CCP system, it is difficult for mainland Chinese companies to be free from CCP control and influence, especially large state-owned enterprises. In China, temples have party branches, let alone those companies involved in communications and high technology. For Chinese companies that can extend overseas, they will certainly be controlled by the CCP government and the military. And these companies will certainly be tools for the CCP to infiltrate overseas, balancing the dual tasks of political infiltration and economic money-grubbing.
Executive Order 13959, signed by President Trump on November 12, 2020, cites the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code.
According to the White House statement, the CCP is increasingly using U.S. funds to develop and modernize its military, intelligence and other security agencies. As a result, the Communist Party is able to directly threaten U.S. domestic and overseas forces, including through the development and deployment of weapons of mass destruction, advanced conventional weapons, and malicious cyber acts against the United States and its people.
The statement also noted that the CCP has expanded the military-industrial complex by forcing private companies to support military and intelligence activities through a national strategy of civil-military integration. While ostensibly private and privately owned, these companies directly support, develop, and modernize the CCP’s military, intelligence, and security apparatus, posing an extraordinary threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy, and the economy. These companies raise funds by selling securities in public transactions inside and outside the United States, lobbying U.S. financial investment institutions to issue securities, and taking other actions.
The executive order lists 31 Chinese companies with Communist Party military backgrounds, including huawei, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Hikvision, China Aviation Industry Corporation, China Railway Construction Group, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, and Panda Electronics Group.
Huawei’s Chinese Communist Party Military Background
In June 2020, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released “Threats to US Networks: Oversight of Chinese Government-Owned Carriers” report. The report shows that the U.S. has failed to properly oversee Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies for nearly 20 years.
Since taking office, Trump has been working to remove Chinese Communist Party infiltration into the U.S., particularly in the 5G telecommunications industry, and the U.S. has sanctioned two Chinese Communist Party communications equipment suppliers, Huawei and ZTE, for infiltration overseas. on November 22, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted overwhelmingly five to zero to ban U.S. companies from using U.S. government funds for Huawei and ZTE communications equipment. on December 2020 On December 10, the FCC adopted another list of these devices.
Huawei’s background has been of interest to the West. in May 2019, the Telegraph reported that the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a British think tank, had analyzed the resumes of some 25,000 Huawei employees and found that some of them also worked for the Chinese Communist Party’s military or intelligence services. This appears to be a systematic and structured relationship.
In the same month, the United States imposed an export control ban on Huawei. Guo Wengui, a wealthy mainland businessman in exile, disclosed that Huawei developed during Jiang Zemin’s control of Zhongnanhai. Every Huawei phone has a wiretapping function, and the problem with Huawei and Meng Wanzhou itself is the fraud of stealing technology and assisting families like Jiang Zemin’s to wiretap all Chinese people.
Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei. A former Huawei executive was quoted by the Financial Times in December 2018 as saying that since Ren was received by then Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin in 1994, “the company has taken off as fast as crazy.”
Ren was backed at the highest level, the report said. A few years later, Huawei built the Communist Party’s military’s first nationwide communications network. Huawei also took over the Golden Shield Project, a network project led by Jiang Zemin’s son Jiang Mianheng to monitor the people. Huawei people disclosed that whenever Jiang Zemin went to Shenzhen, he would go to Huawei. Jiang Mianheng also often provides guidance for Ren Zhengfei chess, Huawei is “low-key” under the Jiang family’s cultivation of rapid development.
Under the leadership of Jiang Mianheng, the Jiang family used its power to reach out to many fields, becoming not only a tool for Jiang Zemin’s family to enrich themselves, but also a tool to spy on and persecute the people. In addition to Huawei, there are many other industries in China, including the telecommunications industry.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s April 9, 2020 statement noted that “the nature of China Telecom’s operations in the United States” is to “create opportunities for China (the Chinese Communist Party) to engage in malicious cyber activities, economic espionage, communications disruptions, and misrouting of U.S. communications, among other disruptive activities. “
AT&T Plays Key Role in Chinese Communist Infiltration of U.S. Companies
AT&T’s current chairman of the board, William E. Kennard, is a key player in the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of U.S. companies. AT&T owns CNN, and Kennard is also chairman of the board of Staple Street Capital, a private equity fund. Staple Street Capital owns Dominion Voting Systems, the company involved in the 2018 election, through a 2018 acquisition.
AT&T’s current chairman of the board, William E. Kennard, is a member of the board of directors. Official photo of William E Kennard.
Kennard was promoted to chairman of AT&T’s board of directors on Nov. 6, 2020, the third day after the election, and on Dec. 1, the nonprofit news organization Project Veritas released a heavyweight recording. In the recording, CNN’s president gave editors editorial principles to dominate public opinion by reporting Trump as unhinged, increasingly trapped in despair, etc.
The December 25 explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, was linked to AT&T, financial news site Morningstar reported on December 27. Nashville Mayor John Cooper said the explosion was linked to AT&T. John Cooper told CBS’s Face the Nation, “For all of us in the area, it feels like there’s some connection to the AT&T facility and the explosion site. ” Intelligence officials have also considered whether the AT&T building was the target of a bomb attack, people familiar with the matter said.
According to Hong Kong China expert Shi Shan, the Chinese Communist Party interfered in the U.S. election with extremely covert tactics, but these tactics were not prepared in a day, with decades of pavement of infiltration into the U.S., and were made possible by a combination of economic cloak and political infiltration, which came to power at a critical time.
AT&T’s Full Cooperation with Communist China in the Field of Communications
Public information shows that AT&T opened its first office in Beijing back in 1983. In 1991, following the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, AT&T’s former chairman and CEO Robert E. Allen opened an office in Beijing. Robert E. Allen, former chairman and CEO of AT&T, visited China in 1991. During this time, Allen met with Jiang Zemin and stated that he would support the extension of China’s Most Favored Nation status and would urge the U.S. government and other Western governments to ease restrictions on China.
In 1993, AT&T and the Communist Party’s State Planning Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which indicated that AT&T and the Communist Party would cooperate fully and on a long-term basis in more than a dozen areas of communications. 1997 saw Allen meet with Jiang twice, followed by frequent interactions, not only when AT&T announced the establishment of a network integration and consulting division in China, but also when Jiang visited the AT&T Network Management Center during Jiang’s visit to the United States.
In 2000, AT&T, China Telecom, and Shanghai Cintron invested in the formation of Xintian Telecom, China’s first joint venture telecom operator. In recent years, with the rapid development of infrastructure networks and data centers, AT&T has started an intelligent telecom layout in China. It is easy to see that AT&T has played an important role in modernizing the Chinese Communist Party’s communications.
Why is AT&T “favored” by the Chinese Communist authorities and Jiang Zemin? This brings us to the “telecom kingdom” that Jiang Zemin’s family has built with its power in China.
China Unicom, which was previously delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, was formerly known as China Netcom. This Netcom was founded by Jiang Zemin’s son Jiang Mianheng’s Shanghai Lianhe Investment Company, and Jiang Mianheng’s “telecom kingdom” covers China Mobile, Unicom and China Netcom, which are the most profitable companies in the world and have become the Jiang family’s “money bags.
According to public information, Jiang resigned from Hewlett-Packard in 1993, when AT&T signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Communist Party, and returned to China to join the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 1994, Jiang bought the Shanghai Lianhe Investment Company, which was worth hundreds of millions of RMB from the Shanghai Municipal Economic Commission, and started his “telecom kingdom”. In 1994, Jiang Mianheng bought Shanghai Lianhe Investment Company with a few million RMB and started his career as a “telecom king. It is believed that the year 1994 was the beginning of China’s telecom market interests falling into the hands of Jiang Mianheng. The beginning of the Jiang family’s “telecom empire” also coincided with the period when AT&T brought technology to the Chinese Communist Party and started cooperation.
It is noteworthy that the three shareholders of Xintian Telecommunications Company, in addition to AT&T, China Telecom and Shanghai Cintronics, are all related to Jiang Mianheng. Shanghai CIT was once the largest shareholder of Shanghai Lianhe Investment Company, from which Jiang Mianheng started.
After the new party leader Xi Jinping came to power, many of Jiang’s core figures were purged, and the telecom industry, which Jiang’s family controlled, was also dealt a major blow, with several of Jiang’s inner circle being arrested. With multiple rounds of purges, the new owner of several of China’s major telecom companies is now Xi Jinping, and AT&T’s Chinese Communist Party partners have changed from the Jiang era to the Xi administration.
Speaking at the 18th China International Building Intelligence Summit in 2017, AT&T product manager Tony Zhong said that China’s domestic infrastructure network is growing and that Chinese data center construction is just beginning to be set up, a part of the business that AT&T has been putting back together since 2013. This means that AT&T has a share in the construction of the CCP’s data centers.
With a deep background of cooperation between AT&T and the CCP, is there more hidden interactions between AT&T and the CCP in this long term interest relationship?
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