Its video surveillance systems have won Hangzhou HikvisionDigital Technology Co. a place on the Trump administration'sblacklist for their use in widescale repression of the Muslimpopulation of western China.

As a result, a number of U.S. pension funds are rethinking theirinvestments.

A Reuters report says that Hikvision and seven other companiesmade the blacklist "because they allegedly enabled the crackdownthat has led to mass arbitrary detentions in the Xinjiang region."The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), the NewYork State Teachers Retirement System, and the Florida RetirementSystem all owned shares as of the end of June 2018, the most recenttime period for which data was available.

A CalSTRS spokeswoman is quoted in the Reuters report as saying,"We are tracking the situation given this new development with theDepartment of Commerce's announcement," and a spokesman for the NewYork teachers' fund is cited as saying, "Our holdings are primarilyheld according to their weights in passive portfolios matching theMSCI ACWI ex-U.S. index, our policy benchmark. We are monitoringthe situation."

Being blacklisted typically bars a company from purchasingcertain U.S. technologies, like software and microchips, unlessthey've been granted specific permission. The blacklist does notmean U.S. investors are barred from owning their shares.

Hikvision, however, was barred from selling its products to U.S.federal agencies lest its technology gain access to "sensitive"systems. It is appealing its inclusion on the blacklist, withReuters reporting that its general manager, Hu Yangzhong, has saidthe firm has hired a human rights lawyer to defend it.

"Hikvision has emerged as the corporate poster child forenabling Chinese human rights abuses, with its surveillance camerasvisible atop the walls of detention camps incarcerating some 1million or more Uighurs in Xinjiang," Roger Robinson, president andCEO of Washington, D.C.-based risk consultancy RWR Advisory Group,is quoted as saying. He adds that many Americans are unsuspectingowners because the shares are owned by index funds with little orno exploration into such factors as human rights abuses or nationalsecurity.

From: BenefitsPro