Representative Michael McCaul, who has harshly criticized China in his position as the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, disclosed that his family owns stock in a Chinese tech company he described as a threat to national security. An April 20 periodic transaction report showed that McCaul disclosed a February purchase of between $50,000 and $100,000 in shares of the Chinese firm Tencent Holdings, Politico reported. In November, several months before the shares were purchased, the Texas congressman said that Tencent Holdings is among the “Chinese companies that threaten America's economic and national security.”
Representative Michael McCaul, who has harshly criticized China in his position as the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, disclosed that his family owns stock in a Chinese tech company he described as a threat to national security.
An April 20 periodic transaction report showed that McCaul disclosed a February purchase of between $50,000 and $100,000 in shares of the Chinese firm Tencent Holdings, Politico reported.
In November, several months before the shares were purchased, the Texas congressman said that Tencent Holdings is among the “Chinese companies that threaten America’s economic and national security.”
The tech conglomerate is “heavily involved” in the “social credit system, a dystopian system China has implemented to score its citizens’ behavior,” McCaul said at the time, as well as an “integral part” of the Chinese Communist Party’s industrial policies and “one of four national champions for artificial intelligence.”
McCaul’s lawyer, Elliot Berke, said the shares are not owned personally by McCaul but by his wife, and the decision to invest in Tencent was made by a third party.
“Congressman McCaul did not purchase any shares in China’s