Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Moolenaar Lead Letter to SEC Chairman Calling for Delisting of CCP-Linked Companies on U.S. Stock Exchanges

May 5, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Rick Scott, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, and Congressman John Moolenaar, Chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led several of their colleagues in a joint letter to the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Paul Atkins calling on the SEC to begin delisting Chinese companies that pose serious national security and investor protection risks.

 

In their letter, the members highlight several Chinese firms listed on U.S. stock exchanges—including major players like Alibaba, Baidu, Hesai, and Zeekr—that benefit from American capital markets while simultaneously advancing the strategic objectives of the Chinese Communist Party, including military modernization, surveillance, and forced labor. Senator Scott and Congressman Moolenaar were joined by Senator Jim Justice and Representatives Andy Barr, Gus Bilirakis, Ashley Hinson, Darin LaHood, Nathaniel Moran, Dan Newhouse, and Rob Wittman.

 

Senator Scott has also called on SEC Chairman Atkins to fully implement the Holding Foreign Companies Act to get bad actors off U.S. exchanges and recently introduced a package of five bills aimed at protecting American investors by cracking down on Communist China’s influence in and exploitation of U.S. financial markets.

 

Read excerpts of the letter below or in full HERE:

 

“As Chairmen of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party and the Senate Committee on Aging and Members of Congress, we write to express grave concern over the continued presence of Chinese companies on U.S. stock exchanges. These entities benefit from American investor capital while advancing the strategic objectives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), supporting military modernization and gross human rights violations. As described below, they also pose an unacceptable risk to American investors. We urge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to use its existing authorities to protect U.S. markets, investors, and national security.

 

These high-risk firms operate across multiple sectors but share common characteristics: many face U.S. government restrictions, maintain hidden Party control mechanisms, secretly support Chinese military applications, or are linked to slave labor.

 

 

Several also use variable interest entity (VIE) structures, which obscure true control and leave U.S. investors with no direct ownership over the Chinese operating company. The firms listed above are merely examples. They illustrate deeper, structural problems posed by the CCP’s control over Chinese companies that make the listing of their securities on U.S. exchanges untenable.

 

 

This list is not exhaustive. It reflects only a subset of PRC-based firms accessing U.S. capital while serving a genocidal dictatorship and our foremost geostrategic rival. Under Beijing’s model of military-civil fusion, data, capital, hardware, and research—no matter how commercial on the surface—are ultimately harnessed for nefarious state purposes. Those purposes include surveillance, repression, and, in the event of a military conflict, operations aimed at defeating the American military and killing our service members. The SEC can—and must—act.

 

We urge the Commission to begin delisting companies that are inseparable from China’s military-industrial system or fundamentally incompatible with U.S. disclosure laws. The full list of Chinese firms currently listed on major U.S. exchanges totals 286 as of March 7, 2025. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We ask that you respond with your plan for addressing the concerns raised in this letter. We stand ready to support you, including on legislation as appropriate, to ensure U.S. financial markets are not exploited by the CCP to fuel its rise and imperil our national security.”

 

 

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