Marco Rubio follows Donald Trump’s hardline trade war position by questioning MSCI’s embrace of Chinese stocks
- Rubio says he builds on Trump administration’s efforts to combat ‘the Chinese government and Communist Party’s predatory economic behaviour’
- Rubio also seeks the delisting of foreign companies trading on US stock exchanges if they fail to comply with US regulations
US Senator Marco Rubio is using the trade impasse between Washington and Beijing to open a new front of potential friction between the two nations, by questioning why a major player in global stock benchmarks is including Chinese shares in its stock indexes – years after that process has been under way.
In a June 12 letter to Henry Fernandez, the chairman and chief executive officer of MSCI, Rubio questioned why the China A-shares class of stock, which trade in mainland China and typically are only available to mainland Chinese citizens, are being included in the company’s global indices, which overall serve as benchmarks to US$14.8 trillion in equity assets.
Asked why he chose to question MSCI now, Rubio told the South China Morning Post: “For the first time since China controversially joined the WTO two decades ago, we have an American president whose administration is challenging the status quo and confronting the Chinese government and Communist Party’s predatory economic behaviour.”
The indexes created by MSCI, as well as other financial services firms, help investors, globally, assess the health of their financial portfolios against broader markets as well as narrowly focused investment strategies.
A spokesperson for MSCI would only confirm that Fernandez had received Rubio’s letter on June 12.
