Asia, Business & trade, Human rights, New in Lobbying, US-China tensions

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.

Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer /  US Senate Historical Office

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.


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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

Company
Current lobbying issues
Influence firms
2020 spending
(Q1 – Q3)
2019 spending
(excluding subcontractors)
ByteDance

(Entertainment)
Parent company of TikTok

Targeted by President
Donald Trump
Executive Order
of Aug. 6, 2020
ByteDance
(in-house lobbying)

Covington & Burling

Monument Advocacy

K & L Gates

Mehlman Castagnetti

American Continental Group
$1.53 million


terminated

$330,000

$120,000

$300,000

$260,000
$270,000


$140,000

$100,000

$40,000

New in 2020

New in 2020
DJI Technology Inc.

(Drones)
Accused of human rights
abuses in Xinjiang

Added to Commerce Department
“entity list” restricting US
technology exports
to the company on Dec. 18, 2020
DJI Technology Inc.
(in-house lobbying)

K & L Gates

BGR Gov’t Affairs

Akin Gump

Cassidy & Associates

CLS Strategies
$1 million


$190,000

terminated

$240,000

$90,000

$10,000
$680,000


$240,000

$80,000

$40,000

New in 2020

New in 2020
Fujian Jinhua

(Semi-conductors)
Accused of intellectual
property theft

Added to Commerce Department
entity list in October 2018
Steptoe & Johnson

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

Jim Handy

Blueprint Communications
$210,000

$360,000

Unknown

$17,500/month
$240,000

$670,000

Unknown

New in 2020
Hikvision

(Video
Surveillance)
Accused of human rights
abuses in Xinjiang

Added to Commerce Department
entity list in October 2019
Sidley Austin

Glover Park Group

Mercury Public Affairs

Burson-Marsteller (public relations)
$1.5 million

terminated

$767,000 (Jan. – June)

$1.04 million (Jan. – June)

$640,000

$240,000

$1.4 million

$820,000
Huawei Technologies

(Tele-
communications)
Accused of being a threat
to US national security

Added to Commerce Department
entity list in May 2019

Designated a national security threat
by the Federal Communications
Commission in June 2020
Huawei Technologies USA
(in-house lobbying)

Jones Day

Racepoint Global (public relations)

Steptoe & Johnson

Sidley Austin

Squire Patton Boggs

Pivot Integrated Communications


Ruder Finn
(public relations)
$450,000


$0*

$2.4 million

$160,000

$0*

$380,000

$964,000
(terminated)

Unknown**
$2.99 million


$60,000

$1.05 million

$210,000

$0*

$230,000

$282,000


New in 2020
iFLYTEK

(Voice recognition)
Accused of human rights abuses
in Xinjiang

Added to Commerce Department
entity list in May 2019
Chartwell Strategy Group

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
$300,000


$753,000 (Feb-July)
$150,000


$865,000
(through Jan. 2020)
Inspur Group

(Cloud computing)
Added to list of Department
of Defense list of “Communist
Chinese military companies”
in June 2020
Sidley Austin
Unknown
No lobbying
Lenovo

(Computers)
Dutko Worldwide
$100,000
$260,000
Lexmark

(Printers)
Richard Goodstein

Venn Strategies
$120,000

$120,000
$160,000

$0*
Omnivision
Technologies


(Image sensors)
Approved to sell image
sensors to Huawei in Oct. 2020
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Unknown
No lobbying
OnePlus

(Smartphones)
APPO-G
Unknown
No lobbying
Riot Games

(Video games)
Owned by Tencent (see below)
Platinum Advisors
$150,000
No lobbying
Semiconductor
Manufacturing
Int’l Corp (SMIC)


(Semi-conductors)
Accused of ties to entities
of concern in the Chinese
military industrial complex

Added to Commerce
Department “entity list” restricting
US technology exports to the
company on Dec. 18, 2020
Akin Gump


Capitol Counsel (via Akin Gump)
$50,000

Unknown
No lobbying
Tencent

(Tech conglomerate)
Parent company of WeChat app

Targeted by President Donald
Trump’s executive order of
Aug. 6, 2020
Tencent Holdings (in-house lobbying)

Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison

Toby Myerson

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
$500,000


$210,000


$150,000

$130,000
No lobbying
ZTE Corporation

(Tele-
communications)
Designated a national security
threat by the Federal
Communications Commission in June 2020
ZTE USA (in-house lobbying)

APPO-G

Hogan Lovells

Akin Gump
$30,000

$50,000

terminated

$850,000
$120,000

$150,000

$2.94 million

$80,000
* $5K or less per quarter
** Huawei signed a year-long, $1.45 million contract with Ruder Finn at the end of October

Source: Lobbying Disclosure Act (Congress) / Foreign Agents Registration Act (Department of Justice)

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).

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