The Times: 'Helena Morrissey calls on investors to ditch China because of rights abuse'

Baroness Morrissey, a high-profile City financier, has called on investors to sell stakes in Chinese companies because of human rights abuses in the country.

Morrissey criticised HSBC, BlackRock and the City of London Corporation for their attitude towards China. “I think with China we’ve got to recognise that we’re dealing with a bad actor who has very different world views, who wants to impose those views on the rest of us,” she told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference. “We’d be very naive to think if we’ve got a seat at the table and we invest in some of their companies, they will indulge us and they’ll listen and they’ll change.”

Morrissey said human rights abuses should be treated as seriously by investors as climate change, adding: “How can one set of fundamental principles — our human rights — be cast aside simply because it might be inconvenient in the fight against climate change? Or because they might get in the way of a very short-term financial gain?”

Morrissey, 55, is chairwoman of AJ Bell, the London-listed investment platform, and a former head of Legal & General’s personal investing business. She is known for her campaign work for equal pay and opportunities.

Morrissey was speaking at a panel discussion hosted by the charity Hong Kong Watch and the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

She criticised HSBC’s management for its role in freezing the accounts of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. “They say they are abiding by the rules, they are obeying orders, but surely if there’s one thing we have learnt over history, it is that is no defence,” she said.

She also criticised Catherine McGuinness, policy chairwoman of the City of London Corporation, for saying earlier this year that she was “really not clear it’s our place” to publicly criticise the Chinese government for human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims.

Morrissey called on “small pension holders” to make a difference by raising concerns if their pensions were invested in Chinese companies and cited a BlackRock exchanged traded fund with investments in Alibaba and Tencent.

BlackRock declined to comment.

This article was published in The Times on 5 October 2021: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/helena-morrissey-calls-on-investors-to-ditch-china-because-of-rights-abuse-rtfnwvmtq