BlackRock is the largest money manager in the world; last month it started offering investment products to Chinese people.
Per Bloomberg
George Soros criticized China’s drive for BlackRock Inc. as a risk to U.S. customers ’money and security interests, on the last slope of the financial billionaire and philanthropist against investing in the world’s second largest economy.
“Pouring billions of dollars into China now is a tragic mistake,” Soros wrote in a post in the Wall Street Journal. “They are likely to lose money to BlackRock customers and, most importantly, harm the national security interests of the U.S. and other democracies.”
BlackRock leads a global foray into the Chinese asset management industry. Last month, the world’s largest money manager began offering investment products to Chinese people, two months after gaining approval to become the world’s first all-foreign investment fund company. country.
The comment was one of several that Soros has written in recent weeks to warn against Xi Jinping’s closer economic ties with China amid a wave of market-opening crackdowns. Soros denounced Xi in another magazine published last month as “the most dangerous enemy of open societies in the world” and later argued in the Financial Times that Congress should pass legislation that limits managers’ investments. from assets to “companies where real government structures are both transparent and aligned with stakeholders.”
In the last piece, Soros said BlackRock seemed to misunderstand Xi, whose administration said it viewed all Chinese companies as “party state instruments.”
The divergent views of two of the world’s most influential money managers underscore the increasingly challenging environment facing financial firms in Asia’s largest economy. While Xi has facilitated the participation of foreign investors in domestic markets, his government has also tightened control of the private sector and clashed with the United States on everything from cybersecurity to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Soros said the sidewalks that began with the sudden cancellation of Ant Group Co.’s initial public offering. last year they have “achieved a crescendo.” He cited the actions against the company Didi Global Inc. days after its publication in New York and the crackdown on US-funded Chinese mentoring companies. Soros also said BlackRock executives need to be aware of a “huge crisis that is taking place in the Chinese real estate market.”
While Soros remains an influential Democratic Party sponsor of U.S. President Joe Biden, he no longer manages foreign money and is now a minority voice on Wall Street. BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and most of its top money management and banking partners have decided that opportunities in China outweigh the risks.
“Today, the U.S. and China are engaged in a vital or deadly conflict between two systems of governance: repressive and democratic,” Soros said.