As Beijing moves swiftly to increase control over Hong Kong citizens this week, the Wall Street Journal warns that their actions highlight a broader ambition “to extend control over speech world-wide, intimidating media companies, academics and public officials from criticizing Communist Party rule.”
Protesters and dissidents are threatened with long prison sentences, asset and property seizures, and are not permitted to leave as broad new police powers in Hong Kong extend to internet and social media control, encrypted message monitoring, and book banning. “In other words, the Communist Party now asserts the authority to censor human-rights activists abroad, muzzle dissidents in exile, or demand a peek at off-the-record conversations between foreign journalists and their sources, to name a few possibilities.”
So let’s be clear. Not a single ESG fund owns a Chinese stock or any company with material business in China?
