California employee pension fund accused of funding Chicom military projects

PJ Media:

An Indiana congressman alleges that the California Public Employee Pension Plan (Cal-PERS) is investing billions of U.S. dollars into the Chinese military and he's calling for its manager to be fired over it.

Worse, Republican Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana says that the chief investment officer of Cal-PERS, Yu Ben Meng, "was actually recruited to the position by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], through something called the Thousand Talents Program. Now he's denied it...[but] we've found Chinese newspaper articles that take credit for him being in the position that he's in currently."

Congressman Banks claims that $3.1 billion of the California public employee retirement fund has gone into 172 Chinese companies, some of which are "blacklisted" by the U.S. government. Those dollars have funded Chinese warships, Chinese naval bases, and a company that builds surveillance technology used to track the Uighur Muslims.

Banks says "the more we've dug into this the more troubling it's become."

He said he's afraid this kind of investment is happening all over the country but it's the only case of a person who has actually "graduated from the Thousand Talents Program which makes it so clear and egregious and it's happening right under [Governor] Gavin Newsom's nose. If he doesn't do something we have to ask the question 'which side is he on?'"

The Thousand Talents Program is known as a Chinese "espionage operation."

California has $300 billion in assets under management. It's the largest state pension fund in the U.S.
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There is more.

Do California public employees know where their pensions are being invested?  Congress needs to look into this and propose changes to pension fund regulations in this kind of invetment.