President Joe Biden’s newest climate appointee has ties to a Chinese university that is known to conduct military research for the country’s communist government.
On Monday, the Biden administration’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced that Dr. Yue (Nina) Chen will be leading “the agency’s climate risk efforts related to supervision, policy, and external engagement” as the department’s next chief climate risk officer.
According to a press release, Chen “will oversee the activities of the OCC’s Office of Climate Risk and report directly to the Acting Comptroller of the Currency,” with the agency set to “continue to focus on the development and implementation of climate risk management frameworks for the federal banking system.”
The OCC, which stands as an independent branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, “charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks and federal savings associations as well as federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.”
“I am excited to welcome Dr. Chen to the OCC,” said Acting Comptroller Michael J. Hsu in a statement. “We are fortunate to have someone with her background and experience in both finance and climate-related financial risk to lead the agency’s risk management work in this area.”
Prior to joining the administration, Chen worked in climate policy for the New York State Department of Financial Services as well as the International Association of Insurance Supervisors.
Most notable in Chen’s resume, however, is that she previously graduated from Tsinghua University, a Beijing-based academic institution that is known to conduct military research for the Chinese government and People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The university is also the alma mater of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Tsinghua University “is designated very high risk for its high level of defence research and alleged involvement in cyber attacks.”
“Tsinghua engages in a range of military research and was awarded secret-level security credentials for classified research in 2007,” an ASPI report reads. “In advancing military-civil fusion, Tsinghua also continues its ‘fine tradition’ of serving China’s national security and defense, actively creating new platforms and initiatives to support this strategy. Not only its dedicated defence laboratories but also a range of key laboratories and research institutions at the university have received funding from the military.”
Among the areas covered by Tsinghua’s military research are “artificial intelligence, air-to-air missiles, navigation technology, instrument science and materials science.”
“The Biden Administration’s climate policies follow the same strategy established by [Environmental, Social, and Governance] architect Larry Fink – dismantle America’s energy industry while propping up the Chinese Communist Party,” said Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild, who broke the story on Twitter. “They’ve become so arrogant they’re not even making an effort to hide it, appointing Dr. Yue Chen, a graduate of the CCP training grounds Tsinghua University, to a senior role at the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.”
In addition to being a research tool for China’s military apparatus, Tsinghua University has also reportedly been complicit in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) crackdown on the country’s Uyghur Muslim population. In 2019, the U.S. government placed iFlytek, a Chinese voice recognition company that partnered with Tsinghua in 2006 “to establish a joint research institute,” on its Entity List after the company was found to be “implicated in supporting human rights abuses in Xinjiang through its surveillance technologies.”
Moreover, Tsinghua has also been utilized as an arm of the Chinese government to target U.S. firms and government agencies. In 2018, the cybersecurity firm known as Recorded Future revealed that a group of hackers “used computers at China’s Tsinghua University to target U.S. energy and communications companies, as well as the Alaskan state government, in the weeks before and after Alaska’s trade mission to China.”
“It’s time for hard working Americans to stand up to progressive elites and stop allowing them to give China a one-way ticket to surpass the United States as the preeminent global power,” Hild said. “With Fink and Biden at the wheel we are speeding toward dependance on a communist nation run by a dictator responsible for slavery, genocide, and theft of American innovation.”
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