China woos Jamie Dimon, elon Musk in search of economic boosters

Politburo members, ministers recently met Starbucks, Arm, Franklin Templeton execs

China is rolling out the red carpet for global business leaders including Jamie Dimon and Elon Musk, seeking to allay fears the world’s second-largest economy is becoming more hostile toward foreign capital.

The chief executive officers of JPMorgan Chase and Tesla . both met separately with senior Communist Party officials this week against a backdrop of tumbling Chinese markets and disappointing economic data. 

Members of China’s powerful Politburo also sat down with executives from Starbucks and Jardine Matheson in recent days, while top ministers welcomed leaders from investment firm Franklin Templeton and British semiconductor software company, Arm.

The flurry of engagement comes after an espionage probe into expert consultancies used by firms to operate in China spooked foreign investors. President Xi Jinping called protecting industrial security the “priority of priorities” at a high-profile meeting this month.

Nervousness around anti-foreigner sentiment comes as China faces a sluggish post-pandemic recovery, reporting weak manufacturing and export data, as well as a property slump. Geopolitics has also made investors wary, as US President Joe Biden leads a global campaign to block China from high-end chips with potential military applications. 

Foreign direct investment into China has plummeted, with investors pulling $30 billion out in the first quarter. The MSCI China Index is down more than 50% from its 2021 peak and foreign holdings of Chinese bonds fell again in April after rising slightly in March.

“Xi no longer needs rapid growth to justify his rule, but if the economy is doing too badly it will bring extra security risks for him,” said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. 

China drilling  10,000-m hole

Yihui Xie

Chinese scientists have begun drilling a 10,000-metre (32,808 feet) hole into the Earth’s crust, as the world’s second largest economy explores new frontiers above and below the planet’s surface. 

Drilling for what is set to be China’s deepest ever borehole began in the country’s oil-rich Xinjiang region on Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Earlier that morning, China sent its first civilian astronaut into space from the Gobi Desert.

The narrow shaft into the ground will penetrate more than 10 continental strata, or layers of rock, according to the report, and reach the cretaceous system in the Earth’s crust, which features rock dating back some 145 million years. 

“The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told Xinhua.

President Xi Jinping called for greater progress in deep Earth exploration in a speech addressing some of the nation’s leading scientists in 2021.

Dimon hints at life after JPMorgan, may take public office

Adam Haigh & Stephen Engle
 

JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said running for public office has crossed his mind amid speculation on his long-term future beyond helming the financial services giant.

“I love my country, and maybe one day I’ll serve my country in one capacity or another,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview, when asked if he’s ever considered a public office position. The financier is among a group of long-tenured Wall Street chiefs that also includes Brian Moynihan, 63, who’s led Bank of America Corp. since 2010, and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman, 64, who became CEO at the start of 2010 and is stepping down within 12 months. Dimon, 67, who has been head of JPMorgan since 2005, has repeatedly said that he plans to remain atop the biggest US bank for five more years. 
 

For now, he’s focused on his job running the largest US bank, a role he’s “quite happy” in. “But, I love what I do,” he said. JPMorgan does “a great job for helping Americans, for helping countries around the world.”