Michael Bloomberg is a prominent advocate of ESG, an investment discipline that incorporates measuring actual or prospective companies against various environmental, social, and governance standards.
Not so long ago, in response to an article Bloomberg had written in which he claimed that ESG was “investing 101” I commented that “in reality, [it was] an Orwellian 2 + 2 = 5.”
BEIJING, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Michael Bloomberg apologised last week at a business forum hosted by the news agency he founded for remarks by British former Prime Minister Boris Johnson criticising China as autocratic.
The controversy highlights China’s influence in Asia and sensitivities about overt criticism of Beijing.
Bloomberg, a former New York mayor who ran for president in 2020, apologised on Thursday at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, a business gathering whose speakers included Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and whose delegates included Chinese businessmen.
“Some may have been insulted or offended last night by parts of the speaker’s remarks referencing certain countries and their duly elected leaders,” Bloomberg said in remarks posted on Twitter.
Referring to Johnson, Bloomberg said: “Those were his thoughts and his thoughts alone, not cleared in advance by anyone or shared with me personally… To those of you who were upset and concerned by what the speaker said, you have my apologies.”
The New York Post (February 27, 2020):
He may be the least progressive Democrat running for president, but Mike Bloomberg is continuing to bend over backwards to explain the Communist Party of China as he tries to deflect from his refusal to call the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping, a dictator — saying the Chinese people “don’t seem to want” a democracy.
The former New York mayor appeared on a CNN town hall in South Carolina on Wednesday evening and was asked about the “dictator” remarks he made the night before at the Democratic primary debate, in which he refused to pin that label on Xi.
Michael Kranish, writing in the Washington Post (January 1, 2020):
Mike Bloomberg was presiding over his inaugural Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore in 2018 when, to the surprise of some in the audience, he gushed about one of China’s top government officials.
Vice President Wang Qishan was “the most influential political figure in China and in the world,” Bloomberg said, breaking from a prepared text that had said the keynote speaker was “one of” the most influential. Bloomberg noted that he and Wang had first met at Bloomberg’s home 15 years earlier, when he was mayor of New York and Wang was mayor of Beijing, and he praised the vice president for helping lead China “through a period of extraordinary growth.”
Then in September, amid mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and human rights activists decrying China’s imprisonment of Muslim minorities, Bloomberg seemed to go out of his way to defend Beijing, saying in a television interview that President Xi Jinping “is not a dictator.” Bloomberg said Xi “has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.” Pressed by the interviewer, Bloomberg said Xi “has a constituency to respond to . . . they really are responsive.”
… Tensions have grown between Washington and Beijing in recent years amid trade disputes, clashes over democracy and human rights, and disagreements over China’s efforts to expand its influence around the world. Yet Bloomberg, who is spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money to compete for the Democratic presidential nomination, has deepened his entanglements with that key U.S. adversary — forging close financial ties there while showering praise on the Communist Party leaders whose goodwill is required to play a role in that fast-growing market.
The billionaire, whose core business sells financial information to investors, has led efforts since 2015 to make it easier for U.S. companies to trade in Chinese currency, a move embraced by China’s largest banks. He expanded one of his company’s financial indexes, which could steer $150 billion into China while earning his firm an undisclosed amount in fees.
2 + 2 = 5.