My Take | Can JPMorgan Chase outlast Chinese Communist Party?
- American VIPs, especially those from Wall Street, need to talk ‘tough on China’, even as they try to maximise business exposure to the country. Otherwise, they leave themselves vulnerable to accusations that they are kowtowing to Beijing
That’s what people call talking out of both sides of the mouth. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, caused a bit of controversy in Hong Kong. Then he did it again when he returned home to the United States.
City officials, as usual, bent over backwards to let him skip toughened Covid quarantine rules to visit local bank staff. At least that was the cover story. Rumour had it he was on a more urgent secretive mission. More likely, local officials here bent the knee before mighty American bankers, just like they did with Hollywood actresses such as Nicole Kidman.
Whatever the truth was, after the China trip, Dimon told top executives at an elite club in Boston that his bank would outlast the Chinese Communist Party.
“The Communist Party is celebrating its 100th year – so is JPMorgan,” he said. “I’d make a bet we last longer.”
Apparently, his bank first opened for business in China in 1921, the same year the party was founded. You could argue the bank is even older, dating back to tycoon John Pierpont Morgan.
Admitting he wouldn’t be able to make the joke in China, he still called the country one of the biggest opportunities in the world for JPMorgan. Of course it is. This year, in a sign of Beijing’s willingness to open up more of the Chinese financial market to foreign investors, JPMorgan was allowed to fully own its China securities venture. BlackRock and Goldman Sachs were granted similar privileges. Morgan Stanley is expected to follow suit.