Chinese officials are urging Western companies to ignore U.S. warnings about the downsides of economic investments under the regime, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounces Beijing’s aggressive economic and security policies.
“You’ve made the correct choice of putting down your business roots in China to seek development,” Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping wrote to the Global CEO Council in a letter released Thursday on state-run media.
Xi pledged to “provide a better business environment for Chinese and foreign enterprises,” an overture that comes just days after President Trump implied that Beijing’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic has undermined negotiations to resolve the simmering United States-China trade war. Pompeo, in parallel, has intensified his attacks on Chinese technology companies, identifying telecommunications and social media giants as threats to individual privacy and national security.
“We’ve watched unilateral aggression,” Pompeo told the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, as he blamed Xi for confounding decades of U.S. overtures to China. “Many on this call had their intellectual property stolen, American middle class workers losing their jobs … good work done by American businesses to create real value destroyed by Chinese thievery.”
Such political disputes have raised the possibility of a “decoupling” of the American and Chinese economies, a fraught prospect for many companies given the size of the two economies. And yet, the coronavirus pandemic has stoked interest among Western politicians and business leaders in the idea of moving supply chains away from China.
Xi urged the corporate leaders to “uphold the concept of win-win and joint development to enhance communications and cooperation with Chinese enterprises.” Pompeo is dismissive of such appeals, arguing that Beijing uses that rhetoric to obscure its unfairness and dishonesty.
“We want them to respect the rule of law,” Pompeo told the Economic Club. “What we’re asking from China and the Chinese Communist Party isn’t difficult, but it’s something that General Secretary Xi has demonstrated he is unwilling to do.”