Bain Capital Tied to Surveillance Push in China

Keith Bedford for The New York Times

Cities in China are installing surveillance systems with hundreds of thousands of cameras like these at a Beijing building site.

BEIJING ? As the Chinese government forges ahead on a multibillion-dollar effort to blanket the country with surveillance cameras, one American company stands to profit: Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney.

In December, a Bain-run fund in which a Romney family blind trust has holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese company that claims to be the largest supplier to the government?s Safe Cities program, a highly advanced monitoring system that allows the authorities to watch over university campuses, hospitals, mosques and movie theaters from centralized command posts.

The Bain-owned company, Uniview Technologies, produces what it calls ?infrared antiriot? cameras and software that enable police officials in different jurisdictions to share images in real time through the Internet. Previous projects have included an emergency command center in Tibet that ?provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of social stability and the protection of people?s peaceful life,? according to Uniview?s Web site.

Such surveillance systems are often used to combat crime and the manufacturer has no control over whether they are used for other purposes. But human rights advocates say in China they are also used to intimidate and monitor political and religious dissidents. ?There are video cameras all over our monastery, and their only purpose is to make us feel fear,? said Loksag, a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Gansu Province. He said the cameras helped the authorities identify and detain nearly 200 monks who participated in a protest at his monastery in 2008.

Mr. Romney has had no role in Bain?s operations since 1999 and had no say over the investment in China. But the fortunes of Bain and Mr. Romney are still closely tied.

The financial disclosure forms Mr. Romney filed last August show that a blind trust in the name of his wife, Ann Romney, held a relatively small stake of between $100,000 and $250,000 in the Bain Capital Asia fund that purchased Uniview.

In a statement, R. Bradford Malt, who manages the Romneys? trusts, noted that he had put trust assets into the fund before it bought Uniview. He said that the Romneys had no role in guiding their investments. He also said he had no control over the Asian fund?s choice of investments.

Mr. Romney reported on his August disclosure forms that he and his wife earned a minimum of $5.6 million from Bain assets held in their blind trusts and retirement accounts. Bain employees and executives are also among the largest donors to his campaign, and their contributions accounted for 10 percent of the money received over the past year by Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney ?super PAC.? Bain employees have also made substantial contributions to Democratic candidates, including President Obama.

Bain?s decision to enter China?s fast-growing surveillance industry raises questions about the direct role that American corporations play in outfitting authoritarian governments with technology that can be used to repress their own citizens.

It also comes at a delicate time for Mr. Romney, who has frequently called for a hard line against the Chinese government?s suppression of religious freedom and political dissent.

As with previous deals involving other American companies, critics argue that Bain?s acquisition of Uniview violates the spirit ? if not necessarily the letter ? of American sanctions imposed on Beijing after the deadly crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square. Those rules, written two decades ago, bar American corporations from exporting to China ?crime-control? products like those that process fingerprints, make photo identification cards or use night vision technology.

Most video surveillance equipment is not covered by the sanctions, even though a Canadian human rights group found in 2001 that Chinese security forces used Western-made video cameras to help identify and apprehend Tiananmen Square protesters.

Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, who frequently assails companies that do business with Chinese security agencies, said calls by some members of Congress to pass stricter regulations on American businesses have gone nowhere. ?These companies are busy making a profit and don?t want to face realities, but what they?re doing is wrong,? said Mr. Wolf, who is co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

In public comments and in a statement posted on his campaign Web site, Mr. Romney has accused the Obama administration of placing economic concerns above human rights in managing relations with China. He has called on the White House to offer more vigorous support of those who criticize the Chinese Communist Party.

Andrew Jacobs reported from Beijing, and Penn Bullock from New York. Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting from New York.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=97962fec1be2fdb964cbd6c020e85c6a

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