BlackRock CEO addressed a letter to shareholders Thursday (March 24), detailing the steps the firm has taken to isolate Russia despite continuing its investment opportunities in China.
"I speak for everyone at BlackRock when I say that witnessing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been truly heartbreaking,” BlackRock Chairman and CEO Laurence Fink said. “We stand with the Ukrainian people, who have shown true heroism in the face of merciless aggression."
Amid the past few weeks of conflict between the two European countries, BlackRock has taken action to raise humanitarian concerns and rail against the country for its "merciless aggression.” The firm’s response to the humanitarian crisis includes its decision to ground its fiduciary duty, the suspension of all Russian security purchases intended for the company’s active and index portfolios, the letter states.
"BlackRock has been committed to doing our part,” Fink said. “Grounded in our fiduciary duty, we moved quickly to suspend the purchase of any Russian securities in our active or index portfolios. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spoken to countless stakeholders, including our clients and employees, who are all looking to understand what could be done to prevent capital from being deployed to Russia.”
The company’s total client exposure value in Russia dropped to $1 billion earlier this month from $18 billion before the invasion began, Reuters reports.
According to the executive, the move helps spread access “capital markets, financial institutions and companies have gone even further beyond government-imposed sanction,” he wrote in the letter, stating that "access to capital markets is a privilege, not a right."
The firm's operations in China, however, have received backlash amid the country's ongoing efforts to perform a genocide against Xinjiang-based Uyghur populations, as reported by governments and organizations worldwide.
The human rights violations committed by Chinese communist officials were presented in a recent report titled, “China’s Repression and Interment of Uyghurs: U.S. Policy Responses,” which notes that "over a million, and possibly more, Uyghurs have been interned out of a population of 11 million. Credible reports of deaths in custody, torture and systemic political indoctrination must propel the United States into action on behalf of the Uyghurs. In the words of scholar Rian Thum, 'mass murder and genocide do not look like impossible.'”
Earlier this month, Nearly 200 human rights organizations signed an open letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urging her to release a report shedding light on the human rights issues ongoing in China, Globe Banner reports. More than 40 mostly Western nations called on China last year to grant the U.N. and other independent researchers “immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang.” Meanwhile, Beijing maintains that Uyghur genocide is "the life of the century.”
During a February interview, Consumers' Research Executive Director Will Hild pointed out BlackRock’s support of the Chinese Communist Party, stating that the company pours "billions of dollars into Chinese communist-owned businesses propping up their economy."
Contrasting Fink’s celebration of the removal of investment opportunity and access to capital markets from Russia and its citizens, he went on to write that “We are using our global reach and expertise to improve access to long-term investing in more places than ever before,” noting that, ”Choice is an incredibly important aspect of our work with clients. But for many people around the world, the fundamental need is simply 'access,'" and looked sadly upon the fact that those people “simply don’t have the access to the capital markets that they need to begin shifting from saving to investing."