The Bloomberg China network

Bloomberg promotes a made-for-China strategy on global warming

Bloomberg also claimed on PBS, to the redoubtable Firing Line host Margaret Hoover, that “China is doing a lot” to combat global greenhouse emissions. In fact, China is the world’s biggest producer of emissions. Even on a per capita basis, China’s emissions are growing so rapidly, they exceeded the world average in 2005, Europe in 2011, and are fast gaining on the United States. 

When asked how the U.S. should stop China’s growing emissions, Bloomberg said it should “lead by example”, assuring the PBS audience that, “if we can show that we can do it, their people can go to their government and say, ‘if America can do it, why can’t we do it?’” The U.S. has in fact been “leading by example” since approximately 2007, when emissions started dropping on both an absolute and per capita basis.

Bloomberg did not explain how China’s people would convince its government of anything much less a decrease in emissions, without getting thrown in prison.

In 2015 a Chinese film by Chai Jing on air pollution called “Under the Dome” got more than 150 million viewers within just a few days of its release.

Then it was censored. 

When asked about the film at a press conference, Premier Li Keqiang promised the government would do more to combat air pollution. But, 2015 was a low point in China’s emissions, which have since then only increased.

Bloomberg ignores China’s military expansion

Despite Bloomberg’s considerable experience in China, he has made no significant comment on the country’s remarkable military expansion. U.S. military capabilities relative to China have steadily deteriorated since at least 2010. This is especially evident when looking at how the U.S. would fare in a war near China, for example over Taiwan or the South China Sea.

Between 2015 and 2017, China launched almost 400,000 tons of naval vessels, approximately twice the tonnage produced by U.S. Naval shipyards. In 2018, China’s navy reached 300 ships, exceeding the U.S. Navy by ten ships. In 2019, China launched a Type 052D Destroyer every 18 weeks, and a Type 056 Corvette every 6 weeks. 

The U.S. Navy still exceeds the Chinese navy in tonnage. Most Chinese warships are smaller frigates and corvettes, compared with a U.S. reliance on much larger aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. But the latter, often in formations called Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs), are highly vulnerable to China’s DF-21D nuclear-capable “carrier-killer” missiles. The DF-21D entered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) arsenal in 2006 and in 2013 was tested against a ship target approximately the same size as contemporary U.S. aircraft carriers. The longer-range DF-26 nuclear-capable missile was unveiled in 2015 and likely tested against a maritime target in 2017. 

While China’s frigates and corvettes can travel only shorter distances than do American destroyers, the frigates have travelled as far as the Gulf of Aden, and the majority of naval friction between the two countries is over freedom of navigation closer to China in the South and East China seas. 

The Chinese navy is further advantaged by supersonic long-range YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) that outrange slower U.S. Harpoon anti-ship missiles, making the U.S. destroyers that execute freedom of navigation operations highly vulnerable in one-on-one combat. As the balance of naval power in Asian seas shifts to China, it has acted more boldly. For example, the PLA Navy (PLAN) has shadowed all U.S. Navy surface ships in the South China Sea since October 2015.

None of this seems to matter to Bloomberg, who does not publicly recognize the extent of China’s military power, much less how China’s military expansion depends on its economic expansion. Instead, he apparently accepts China’s economic growth as a “win-win” outcome for all.

Bloomberg’s China network

Bloomberg’s pro-China sentiments and campaign for the presidency are particularly concerning given the network of Chinese business and political interests in which he finds himself.

Bloomberg’s links to China are obvious given his close cooperation with the China General Chamber of Commerce in New York (CGCC-USA), his company’s business with Chinese entities, his leadership of the aforementioned RMBUSAWG, and his Bloomberg New Economy Forum (NEF), which invited approximately 400 officials and executives from 60 countries to Singapore in 2018, and to Beijing in 2019. The Singapore event was originally planned for Beijing as well but switched due to the trade war and another economic meeting. 

Bloomberg billed his NEF as having a focus on “China as an emerging power and how we all work together.” According to the Financial Times, Bloomberg’s NEF is “aimed at connecting global business leaders with the Chinese elite.” Bloomberg told the FT, “We do make a little bit of money out of it. It certainly pays for itself… the biggest benefit is you build a better relationship with your customers,” as sales of Bloomberg terminals in China are “growing very rapidly”.

This illustrates how Bloomberg can see something political, that is, “how we all work together”, as having a primary benefit that is to improve a relationship with customers and sell product, in this case Bloomberg terminals.

At the 2018 Bloomberg NEF, Bloomberg praised keynote speaker Wang Qishan, Xi Jinping’s hatchet man in the latter’s “anti-corruption” crusade. Bloomberg said Wang Qishan was “the most influential political figure in China and in the world.” Bloomberg was buoyant about the future of U.S.-China relations. He called the trade war “short-term stuff”. 

Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, an adviser to the Singapore event and known among China analysts to have relatively pro-China views, alluded to the chance of forum participants to rub shoulders with Beijing’s elite. He told the FT that: “The fact the meeting is taking place in Beijing is a positive sign and a sign China remains interested in a dialogue.” He said the Chinese leadership was “pleased with this process” and the forum would provide western business leaders with an opportunity to meet with China’s economic and political leadership. Bloomberg has described Kissinger as his “very close friend”.

The Singapore event was co-hosted by Zeng Peiyan, former vice-premier of the Chinese government’s powerful State Council, and current chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchange, a “think-tank with Chinese characteristics.” The State Council is one of the three most powerful elements of the Chinese government, the other two being the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Zeng has also been a speaker at the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) and was vice chairman of the Boao Forum, known as “China’s Davos”. 

CUSEF is a registered foreign agent in the United States that was founded by Tung Chee-hwa, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). CUSEF has cooperated with the PLA and uses the same public relations firm as does the Chinese embassy in Washington.

Over the two years of its existence, Bloomberg NEF has included Tung Chee-hwa, as well as vice chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress Fu Ying, billionaire CCP member Jack Ma, and government-linked companies and organizations like Didi Chuxing, Alibaba, Tsinghua University, Tencent, the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), and the Center for China and Globalization (CCG). Wang Huiyao, a member of China’s powerful State Council, leads the CCG.

Western organizations and individuals known for pro-China positions took part in Bloomberg’s NEF, including billionaire Ronnie Chan’s Asia Society, Brookings, Eurasia Group, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, president of the European Central Bank (ECB) Christine LaGarde and former U.S. Treasury secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson.