Billionaire and liberal political philanthropist George Soros is panning Blackrock’s China investment foray as a “tragic mistake” and calling on Congress to take action against it.
Soros argued in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that the investment management giant’s dealings in the Chinese economy will not only lose money for its clients in the long run but will also inflict damage on the national security of the United States and other democracies.
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Soros, who is seen as a sort of bogeyman by some on the Right, appealed to bipartisanship in combating China’s growing influence. He said that the two countries are embroiled in a “life and death conflict” between democracy and repression and said that BlackRock money invested in China would help the Chinese by propping up General Secretary Xi Jinping’s regime.
“Congress should pass legislation empowering the Securities and Exchange Commission to limit the flow of funds to China. The effort ought to enjoy bipartisan support,” Soros said.
Last month, BlackRock, which is the world’s largest asset manager, began tapping into the Chinese market by offering mutual funds and investment products to Chinese investors, becoming the first foreign-owned firm to be permitted to do so. The research arm of the company, which is run by CEO Larry Fink, also recently encouraged investors to triple their exposure to Chinese assets.
In the op-ed, Soros takes aim at Xi and asserts that BlackRock misunderstands the nature of China’s economy and the grip that the communist regime has over it.
“The firm seems to have taken the statements of Mr. Xi’s regime at face value,” Soros wrote. “It has drawn a distinction between state-owned enterprises and privately owned companies, but that is far from reality. The regime regards all Chinese companies as instruments of the one-party state.”
He hit at China’s recent regulatory clampdown over some of its biggest companies and said that there is an “enormous crisis brewing in China’s real-estate market.” Soros noted that China’s “Common Prosperity” program to redistribute wealth “does not augur well with foreign investors” and highlighted speculation that Xi may attempt to make himself ruler for life next year.
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“He is bound to have enemies, whom he must prevent from uniting against him. Thus, he needs to bring to heel any entity rich enough to exercise independent power,” he said, highlighting Xi’s crackdown.
The Washington Examiner contacted BlackRock for comment about Soros’s opinion piece but did not immediately receive a response.
