JP Morgan: “We will decline to comment.”
Bank of America: No response. Morgan Stanley: No response. Goldman Sachs: No response.
That’s how those four banks reacted to my question on Thursday as to their position on the new Chinese security law in Hong Kong and whether they are opposed to said law. The recently announced law gives effect to Beijing’s shredding of its treaty obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and its subjugation of Hongkongers to mainland-style tyranny.
But in the banks’ response to my question, we see a rather striking dichotomy between the way in which major American banks are responding to the Black Lives Matter protest movement and Beijing’s war on human rights. Indeed, the dichotomy is so striking that only one serious conclusion can be drawn from it.
It is that these banks are far less concerned about human rights than they are about public relations in the face of social and media scrutiny.
Certainly, there are business interests motivating the show of racial solidarity from CEOs at Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs. These firms rely on a reputation of social responsibility to attract consumers and investors, after all. Their public relations teams will have been advising executives of the need to take defensive action amid rising public anger over George Floyd’s death. China’s authoritarianism? Not an issue.
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon might be taking a knee for protesters in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, but when it comes to Hong Kong protesters, Dimon has only talked evasively of his hope that China will avoid “bad outcomes.”
As he promoted two black executives, CEO James Gorman observed that “this week will not be easily forgotten in history, and it shouldn’t be. God willing, it will be seen as a turning point in race relations. The pain, fear, sadness, and anger felt by the black community, and also by the vast majority of people globally, is palpable.” The pain, fear, sadness, and anger of Hongkongers? Gorman’s not so interested in them.
Bank of America is providing $1 billion to support racial equality. This noble generosity reflects the “true urgency that has arisen across our nation, particularly in view of the racial injustices we have seen in the communities where we work and live. We all need to do more.” Except in Hong Kong, it seems, where we all need to keep quiet and carry on.
Similarly, Goldman Sachs’s $10 million fund finds no sibling in Hong Kong.
I could not find a single condemnation from any bank official over the Hong Kong security law or a serious lament over China’s slave-based oppression of the Uighur people in Xinjiang province. Nor is there any apparent concern for the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly dedicated undermining of the U.S.-led democratic order.
Perhaps because for these banks, morality walks and money talks. As the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports,
Morality is cheap and good business when it comes to public relations on American soil. But abroad, beyond the gaze of consumers, these banks tolerate the tyrannical fires of the Chinese dragon in order to fill their coffers.
