Strive Asset Management Executive Chairman Vivek Ramaswamy argued on Wednesday that the same American companies which left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine are too financially dependent on China to do the same if the nation attacks Taiwan.
More than 1,000 companies in the Western world have decreased operations within Russia beyond the extent required by international sanctions, according to an analysis from the Yale School of Management. During an interview with Fox Business, Ramaswamy predicted that economic conditions will bar companies from leaving China in the way that did not apply to firms leaving Russia.
“It’s easy for multinational corporations to shun Russia. Multinational corporations are not going to shun China in the same way,” Ramaswamy commented. “Many of them depend on China for their growth. So I think the same multinational corporations that condemned Russia for taking action against Ukraine will not say a peep — I think you can mark my words on this — will not say a peep as China makes its move on Taiwan.”
Mark my words: the same companies that sanctimoniously announced their departure from Russia (where they do nearly no business) will not say a peep as China annexes Taiwan in the years ahead. That’s not an accident; it’s by design. pic.twitter.com/25vPMGwx5j
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) October 12, 2022
China has heightened aggression toward Taiwan in recent months. As the United States pursued trade talks with the island nation, the Chinese military sent a “readiness patrol” near Taiwanese sea and airspace. As Russia began the invasion of Ukraine, China likewise sent squadrons of jets into Taiwanese airspace following a similar incursion one month earlier.
Ramaswamy joined former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week in writing an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal noting American companies’ failure to level with investors on their exposure to Chinese risk. While responding to the article on social media, asset management company BlackRock claimed that their analysts have indeed considered implications from Chinese “reunification” with Taiwan — prompting Ramaswamy to observe that the word choice reveals how the asset management company is “beholden” to the Chinese Communist Party even when “they’re trying to argue that they’re not.”
American goods and services trade with China surpassed $615 billion as of 2020, according to data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, while foreign direct investment in China was nearly $124 billion.
At the end of last year, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon apologized after making a mild joke about the Chinese Communist Party marking its centennial. Chinese authorities had granted JPMorgan Chase permission months earlier to assume full control of a securities business.
“I’d make a bet that we last longer. I can’t say that in China. They are probably listening anyway,” Dimon, one of the most influential executives on Wall Street, jested before stating that “it’s never right to joke about or denigrate any group of people, whether it’s a country, its leadership, or any part of a society and culture” shortly thereafter.
In a recent episode of “The Search,” Ramaswamy explained to Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro that Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to start an invasion of Taiwan until his power is solidified following the start of his unprecedented third term. Ramaswamy predicted that the ideal “window for the likely invasion of Taiwan” among Chinese leadership ranges between October 2022 and January 2025, when the next American president could ascend to power.
