Governor Greg Abbott escalated a war of words that he launched this week when he ordered state agencies on Thursday to rid themselves of investments they've made in China based on fears that he harbors on threats to the financial security of Texas by the communists who run the government in the world's second largest nation.
The Republican governor issued the directive in a letter that he fired off to state agency heads and board chairs. Abbott instructed agency leaders to refrain from any new investments in China and to move without haste to get back the funds they have earning interest there now.
But Abbott declined to cite any examples or specific causes for concern that may have prompted the divestment decree.
"Security of Texas and Texans is of utmost importance," Abbott said. "That includes the financial security of Texas state investments. Threats to that security can come from foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), whose belligerent actions across the Southeastern Pacific region and the world have increased instability and financial risk to the State holding investments in China.
"Threats to that security can come from foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), whose belligerent actions across the Southeastern Pacific region and the world have increased instability and financial risk to the State holding investments in China," the governor added. "As Chinese aggression against the United States and its allies seems likely to continue, the financial risk associated with holding investments in China will also rise. Therefore, all investments of state funds in China must be evaluated and immediately addressed."
Abbott apparently wasn't worried about the potential for panic with the alarming rhetoric that he packed into the third edict in four days that takes aim at the Communist Party in China. Abbott got the targeting of China under way with a pair of executive orders that are designed to protect Texas infrastructure and Chinese expatriates who are living here now.
The governor declined to estimate whether Texas stood to lose or to gain financially from the divestment demands. Abbott said that he'd ordered investment authorities at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University to pull all of the schools' money out of China earlier this year. But Abbott did not say in the Thursday letter whether the state's two largest universities had complied with the divestment demands.
Abbott suggested that he was being proactive in the face of dangers he perceives from the communists in China.
"Texas will defend and safeguard itself and our public treasury from any potential threat, including those posed by the CCP," the governor promised in the letter today.
Abbott noted in an executive order on Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Commerce has listed Russia,
Iran, North Korea and Cuba as foreign adversaries in addition to China. But the governor has taken no apparent action this week on the potential threats that the communists in Russia and other countries pose to Texans and state government here.
Abbott expressed fears about the Chinese spying on the people here when he imposed an administrative ban on the use of TikTok on state computers and other devices two years ago. But the governor's fears on TikTok espionage appeared to subside after the social media site's leading investor emerged as Abbott's biggest all-time contributor a year later. Abbott ended a long silence on TikTok when he mentioned the prohibition in one of the orders he dished out this week.
