House Committee Pressures JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America to Abandon Major Hong Kong Deal

China hawks in Congress are pressuring executives at the financial giants JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America to back out of their business with a controversial China-based electric car battery firm.

Last month, John Moolenaar (R-Michigan), the chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wrote to the CEOs of both banks to express “significant concerns” about their involvement in Contemporary Amperex Technology’s Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO).

The firm, known as CATL, is an electric vehicle battery manufacturer, but Moolenaar says it’s also a Communist Party-aligned “Chinese military company” tied to the ongoing persecution of the Uyghur people.

“CATL maintains a close, tier-one supplier relationship with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a paramilitary entity of the Chinese state that operates forced labor camps and is directly tied to the ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

XPCC was the foundational entity written into the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and is connected to mass arbitrary detention, severe physical abuse, and other human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the region.”

Both JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America (BoA) are underwriting CATL’s IPO, which reportedly raised $4.6 billion. CATL shares are set to start trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today, according to Reuters.

Generated Image: Midjourney