ASA Applauds Select Committee on China's Efforts to Expose CCP Economic Espionage

WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) today applauded the House Select Committee on China for holding a hearing on "China's Economic Espionage and Subnational Influence in the United States" and called on Congress to pursue bold legislative and oversight action to counter the CCP's infiltration of America's capital markets.

“China's efforts to infiltrate and compromise America's capital markets are a direct assault on the privacy, liberty, and economic security of every American investor," said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella. "The CCP is actively targeting our financial infrastructure, seeking to steal investor data that can be weaponized for blackmail and coercion. Washington has talked tough on China — but left the door wide open. The SEC's Consolidated Audit Trail is a honeypot of sensitive investor data sitting in plain sight, and Congress must act to shut it down before Beijing walks through it. ASA is calling on lawmakers to pursue bold, urgent action: protect American investors, harden our financial infrastructure, and ensure no foreign adversary can infiltrate our markets or weaponize our financial system against us."

For the last eight years, the ASA has been the only financial services trade association calling on Congress and the federal government to take action to protect America's investors and the nation from the economic and national security threats posed by the CCP. Iacovella has testified before Congress on multiple occasions detailing how the CCP exploits regulatory loopholes to infiltrate U.S. capital markets and how CCP-sponsored scammers target American seniors and retirement savers with increasingly sophisticated schemes. 

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The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.