Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Wall Street is selling out to China

  • And it's much worse than you think

  • But what are they getting in return?

  • Welcome back to China Uncensored.

  • I'm Chris Chappell.

  • Over the last couple years, the US government has been getting tougher and tougher on China.

  • But don't worry.

  • Because China has one powerful friend left in the US: Wall Street.

  • Yes, Wall Street CEOs really want to be BFFs with the Chinese Communist Partythe kind

  • of best friends who make lots of money together selling out America.

  • And Wall Street is not afraid to let people know.

  • Take Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock.

  • BlackRock is the world's largest asset management company.

  • It has more than 7 trillion dollars of assets under management.

  • It's invested in things like mutual funds, retirement funds, and exchange-traded funds.

  • Back in 2018, BlackRock received an award from the National Committee on US-China relations,

  • a nonprofit thatpromotes understanding and cooperationbetween the US and China.

  • The award was presented at a black-tie gala dinner featuring speeches by former Secretary

  • of State Henry Kissenger and Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai, who read a congratulatory message

  • from Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

  • That dinner by the way raised more than 2 million dollars for that nonprofit.

  • Is it too late for me to sell out?

  • Meanwhile BlackRock CEO Larry Fink took the opportunity to praise China's leadership.

  • And the work China has done to lift millions out of poverty and build a strong middle class

  • is one of the great economic achievements of our lifetimes.

  • And when I am in China, I always congratulate the leaders for what an accomplishment.”

  • Yes, first China's communist leaders destroyed their country's economy for 30 years, then

  • they actually let people make their own money again, and finally they took all of the credit.

  • What an accomplishment.

  • But Larry Fink didn't just parrot Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

  • He went on to talk about how China still has a long way to go, but don't worry because

  • foreign companies can help Chinese people build their investments.

  • Foreign companies like BlackRock, I assume.

  • BlackRock is not alone.

  • The biggest Wall Street investment banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds are

  • all complicit.

  • What these companies and their CEOs have done is shocking.

  • And I'm going to name names later in this episode.

  • But first, how does Wall Street influence the US government on China?

  • I'll show you after the break.

  • Welcome back.

  • How does Wall Street influence the US government on China policy?

  • White House trade adviser Peter Navarro explains.

  • Consider the shuttle diplomacy that's now going on by a self-appointed group of

  • Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers between the US and China.

  • As part of a Chinese government influence operation, these globalist billionaires are

  • putting a full court press on the White House in advance of the G20 in Argentina.

  • The mission of these unregistered foreign agentsthat's what they are, they're

  • unregistered foreign agentsis to pressure this president into some kind of deal.”

  • Navarro is talking about Wall Street pressuring the Trump Administration to cut a trade deal

  • with China back in 2018.

  • He uses some pretty strong language here, calling these Wall Street bankersglobalist

  • billionairesandunregistered foreign agentsand accusing them of being part

  • of a “Chinese government influence operation.”

  • Is that going too far?

  • Well, consider this.

  • China's chief trade negotiator Liu He came to the US in February 2018 to try and work

  • out a trade deal with the White House.

  • According to the Wall Street Journal, before Liu even met with US officials, he met with

  • a group of Wall Street executives.

  • Looking for allies in trade talks with the Trump administration, Mr. Liu dangled

  • a prize...Beijing offered to give U.S. financial firms a new opportunity to expand in China.”

  • And it worked.

  • The get-together helped turn Wall Street into one of the biggest cheerleaders for a

  • [trade] deal.”

  • Unfortunately for Wall Street, the Trump Administration wasn't buying what they were selling.

  • Right after President Trump took office, we predicted on this show that he would put tariffs

  • on China, based on the fact that he had been consistently talking about it for decades.

  • And a year later, he did.

  • And that's when China's Wall Street allies started losing their...clout.

  • In September 2018, executives from some of the biggest Wall Street companies traveled

  • to Beijing to meet with Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, Xi Jinping's right-hand man.

  • Those executives also met withcurrent and former Chinese officials and bankers...to

  • find ways to strengthen financial ties between the United States and China.”

  • Yeah, if Gordon Gekko were around today, he'd be smoking his Cuban cigars in Shanghai.

  • Selling out is good.

  • But the Chinese Communist Party's courting of Wall Street didn't start because of the

  • recent trade war.

  • It's been going on for decades.

  • Let's travel back to the year 1999.

  • When the biggest thing we were worried about was the Y2K computer bug, and the biggest

  • thing we were looking forward to was a new Star Wars movie.

  • Well, we're older and wiser now.

  • The Matrix also came out that year.

  • And you just didn't listen, Mr. Anderson.

  • In April 1999, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visited the US.

  • The purpose of his trip was to lobby US officials and business executives to support China's

  • entry into the World Trade Organization.

  • He even gave the CEO of Nasdaq a carved wooden bull.

  • Highly symbolic, because the Chinese Communist Party would spend the next twenty years giving

  • Wall Street a truckload of bull.

  • But Zhu Rongji also played hardball, warning business executives that they wouldn't get

  • access to the China market unless a trade agreement was quickly approved.

  • Taking his case to the American business interests that have consistently pushed for

  • expanded commercial ties to the world's biggest market, Mr. Zhu insisted that compromises

  • allowing American telecommunications firms, farm products, banks and insurance companies

  • into the Chinese market could all perish.”

  • Well, it worked.

  • And the White House ended up giving into pressure from the business community.

  • The Clinton Administration helped China join the World Trade Organization.

  • And the rest is history.

  • Really depressing history, involving the loss of millions of American jobs and the hollowing

  • out of US manufacturing.

  • But hey, Wall Street made billions of dollars.

  • The Chinese Communist Party has learned a lot about manipulating Wall Street over the

  • last 20 years.

  • And I'll show you a video later that proves it.

  • Stick around because it's explosive.

  • But first, it's time to name names.

  • Right after this short break.

  • Welcome back.

  • Who are the biggest Wall Street sellouts?

  • Well, I can't go into detail about *all* of the Wall Street companies that have sold

  • out to Chinaor this video would be 20 hours long.

  • But I'll give you some highlights.

  • Let's start with BlackRock, the asset management company I talked about at the beginning of

  • this episode.

  • BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is gunning for the China market.

  • In his 2019 letter to shareholders, Fink saidOur goal is to become one of the country's

  • leading global asset managers.”

  • But don't worry!

  • This is good for the US.

  • According to BlackRock.

  • Blackrock told the Wall Street Journal that “U.S. financial institutions' expanding

  • in China is consistent with the policy goals of the U.S. government.”

  • Yes, it's consistent with the US government's policy goals...that were set by Wall Street

  • in the 90s.

  • BlackRock's China ambitions have also affected the larger investment market.

  • In a pretty disturbing way.

  • MSCI is one of the biggest index providers in the world.

  • Lots of big investors, like banks and government pension funds, invest according to MSCI's

  • indexes.

  • Back in 2017, MSCI was considering adding Chinese A Shares, which are stocks that trade

  • in mainland China, to its emerging-markets indexes.

  • The Chinese government lobbied heavily for the inclusion.

  • The other strong voice that helped drive the shift was from BlackRock.”

  • Just that one changesteered tens of billions of dollars into China's stock market.”

  • So thanks to BlackRock, the money in your bank or your pension fund could be invested

  • in China.

  • And you have absolutely no control over that.

  • Yay!

  • Now let's move from BlackRock to Blackstone.

  • Blackstone is the world's largest private equity fund.

  • That means it invests money for private groups of investors.

  • Back in 2007, China's sovereign wealth fund bought a stake in Blackstone.

  • They sold their stake in 2018 as the trade war with China ramped up.

  • Blackstone's CEO Steven Schwarzman has been called Trump's China whisperer.

  • Schwazman says he made eight trips to China in 2018 on behalf of the White House, “trying

  • to assure China's most senior officials that the president was not looking for a trade

  • war.”

  • I bet that went well.

  • Schwarzman also helped organize trade talks between the US and China behind the scenes.

  • But that's not his only connection to China.

  • Mr. Schwarzman has raised more than $500 million to build a scholarship program in

  • his name at China's prestigious Tsinghua University.”

  • But educating Chinese youth is a lot better than what one investment bank did.

  • JP Morgan Chase is one of the few Wall Street companies that have actually gotten in trouble

  • with the US government over its China activities.

  • It was forced to pay 264 million dollars in fines for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices

  • Act.

  • Between 2006 and 2013, the bank developed a referral program, known as 'Sons and Daughters,'

  • for applicants connected to business or government officials that could land JPMorgan work.”

  • As JP Morgan hired more and more candidates based on referrals from Chinese leaders, senior

  • bankers in several instances explicitly tied those jobs or internships to securing deals

  • with Chinese government-run companies.”

  • So basically JP Morgan Chase hired the children of Communist Party officials in order to get

  • business in China.

  • And they got caught.