Taps Coogan – May 18th, 2021

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Leland Miller, CEO of China Beige Book International and one of the best informed observers of China’s economy, recently spoke with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo about the increasing pressure that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is applying to US and Western businesses operating in China.

Some excerpts from Mr. Miller:

“For 15, 20 years we’ve been hearing about how China is gradually opening to foreign companies and there have been headlines in the last year or two about financial services and credit card services opening up in China. So on the margin that’s true, but we have to keep in mind that in the US-China economic relationship, there is relatively little leverage from the China side on the US. One of the main points of leverage will always be Chinese control, Chinese oversight, of US and other Western companies in their economy. So, even if they want to open up a bit, which is an open question, there will always be that leverage point which they’ll need to utilize and that means that foreign corporations, US corporations, will always be under the thumb of Beijing while they are operating…”

“We advise multinationals going into China and there is no question that there are… a lot of opportunities over there, but the thing you try to grind in as much as possible with people that are going into China or trying to maintain a presence there is that everything that happens will be subject to the whims and best interest of the party and that as long as that’s true… this is not just a matter of win-win cooperation…”

“Now there are a lot of companies that are being pushed back and saying ‘You can’t equivocate over this Xinjiang issue, you can’t talk about the dangers of forced labor, you can’t talk about the dangers of Xinjiang cotton, or polysilicon.’ You have to be all-in for China or you’re out. That’s created a major headache for corporations and other western corporations who thought they could keep their heads down indefinitely…”

What a headache it must be for ‘woke’ corporate America to have to take a position on the forced labor and genocide in their supply chains. 

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