Ex-Sen. Boxer deregisters for Chinese tech company accused in Uyghur abuses after backlash

California Democrat Barbara Boxer said today that she will be deregistering as a foreign agent of a Chinese technology company accused of posing a cybersecurity risk and enabling human rights abuses after news of her involvement sparked an immediate backlash.

Boxer had been registered as a foreign agent for Hikvision (US), the US affiliate of the Chinese video surveillance giant accused of helping Beijing spy on the Muslim Uyghur minority in China’s western province of Xinjiang. But she wrote in a tweet that she had changed her mind after seeing the “intense response” to her registration.

This was Boxer’s first registration with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) since she joined Mercury Public Affairs as co-chair of its Los Angeles office in January 2020.

The filing states simply that Boxer was to provide “strategic consulting services” for Hikvision (US). Axios was first to report her decision to deregister.

Boxer spent 24 years in the Senate before retiring at the end of 2016, including several years serving alongside President-elect Joe Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During her tenure she notably held leadership positions on the committee’s panels overseeing both China and human rights.

Biden’s inaugural committee said it would refund a $500 donation from Boxer following her registration, Axios reported.

Mercury began representing Hikvision (US) for $125,000 per month in 2018 amid growing pressure from Congress and the Donald Trump administration. That year Congress banned US federal agencies from procuring Hikvision video surveillance products over spying and hacking concerns. Citing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the Commerce Department followed up in 2019 by adding Hikvision to its list of companies that require US government approval to buy US-made parts or components.

In an emailed statement to Foreign Lobby Report, Uyghur American activist Rushan Abbas asked Boxer to “reconsider her unfortunate decision.”

“Hikvision is directly complicit in the surveillance state that is used to oppress Uyghurs in and outside of the concentration camps. To choose to do business with this company is to be directly complicit in the Chinese regime’s crimes against humanity,” said Abbas, the founder of the Washington nonprofit Campaign for Uyghur. “As someone who served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s human rights panel, [Boxer] should know better than anyone the implications of this. To see that she has chosen to side with a Chinese tech firm rather than those who are suffering genocide under the Chinese regime is abhorrent to myself and millions of oppressed peoples worldwide. It is important to stand on the right side of history, to stand on the side of humanity and our common values.”

Hikvision has denied the accusations.

“Hikvision, as the security industry’s global leader, respects human rights and takes our responsibility to protect people in the U.S. and the world seriously,” the company said in a statement responding to the US blacklisting. The statement noted that the company had hired former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Pierre-Richard Prosper (now a partner with Arent Fox) to advise the company on human rights compliance.

READ MORE

Chinese tech firms go on 2020 lobbying spree with little to show for it

Turkish opposition emerges as key ally of Uyghur activists on US China policy

China’s biggest chipmaker hires first US lobbying firm amid export restrictions

Boxer would have joined former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) on Mercury’s account with Hikvision (US). Also registered as foreign agents on the account are Mercury partners Bryan Lanza and John Lonergan; senior vice presidents Rodney Emery and Deirdre Stach; and managing director Michael McSherry. Hikvision is also represented by law firm Sidley Austin and public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.

Hikvision’s lobbyists have their work cut out for them as they try to assuage bipartisan concerns over China and its technology giants.

Far from signaling any let-up in US pressure over Uyghur abuses, the Biden camp called what’s happening in Xinjiang a genocide during last year’s presidential campaign, going further than the Trump administration to date. “The unspeakable oppression that Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered at the hands of China’s authoritarian government is genocide,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in an August 2020 statement, “and Joe Biden stands against it in the strongest terms.”

Meanwhile Vitter has clashed with members of his own party over his work for Hikvision.

In October 2019 he accused Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, of having an “anti-China and anti-Hikvision agenda,” according to leaked audio of a Hikvision conference call. Rubio responded with a tweet calling the attack a “badge of honor.”

Boxer would have been the fifth former member of Congress to sign up as a lobbyist for Chinese technology firms in recent months. In addition to Vitter these include:

• Former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who is lobbying for tech conglomerate Tencent and image sensor manufacturer Omnivision via Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck;
• Former Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), who lobbies for cloud computing company Inspur via Sidley Austin; and
• Former Rep. Jon Christensen (R-Neb.), who is helping smartphone maker OnePlus with visa applications via Appo-G.

Lobbying by Chinese technology firms and their US affiliates

Updated: This post was updated at 6 p.m. on Jan. 12 to note that former Sen. Barbara Boxer has deregistered as a foreign agent for Hikvision (US).