New appointee is tasked with representing the U.S. on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council.
QUICK FACTS:
- President Joe Biden has appointed Dominic Ng, the chairman of East West Bank, to represent the United States on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council (ABAC) as part of his delegation of economic advisors.
- Ng was recently quoted to have said he believes there is “nothing better” than the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian economic system for managing the market.
- Ng said that “we can’t do anything [economically] since the United States is such a free country,” according to The National Pulse‘s coverage of the White House appointee.
- The economic adviser is a part of a committee of business leaders that advise governments, both domestic and abroad, on economic issues.
- The businessman also talked about the media’s impact on the market, saying that the CCP has a leg up becase they can “control the media to not get out of control.” Ng said they have the advantage of being able to stop the media from “spreading rumors that would hurt the economy.”
NG’S ON THE ECONOMY:
- Ng spoke at the ‘Future of Asia Conference’ in 2018, at which time he praised the CCP’s authoritarian system during a question about a potential economic crash in China.
- He admitted that “China’s banks have [had] problems for many many years. In fact, they’ve never once not had problems,” before going on to say that the country’s “controlled economy” and “one-party system” could stabilize the nation enough to avoid a crash.
- Ng then created a positive comparison for China against the United States for how the two countries would respond to a potential market crash, painting the due process used in the United States as a stumbling block to keeping the economy strong: “Once they spread these bad rumors, market crash,” he explained referring to China. “It happened [in] 2015. You saw that in 2015 suddenly the Shanghai stock exchange dropped like 50 60 percent.”
- “The U.S. would be in a position,” he went on, saying “the [Department of Justice] would say that well we may start an investigation which will take three years. Securities and Exchange Commission may take two years, but in China, they start visiting whoever spread the rumors and start knocking on doors.”
- “Have a cup of tea with them, say what are you going to do? Cease and desist, right?” he continued, referring to Chinese Communist Party officials. Chinese officials “would go into some of these major fund managers, say, you know what, for the sake of the country, don’t sell. Let’s do what’s right for the good of the country. Don’t sell, and then they tell all of these other publicly traded companies, stop trading for a while, we’re going to do whatever we want.”
- “Now it sounds terrible from a U.S. perspective, you say wow this is not free market. This is terrible, but you know what 1.5 years later, everything is fine,” Ng said, before talking about the positive impact of the CCP controlling the media to stop them from spreading rumors.
BACKGROUND:
- Prior to his work for the White House, Ng served on the board of directors for the Asia Society, which is a U.S.-based group receiving funds from several Chinese state-owned companies and a partner of the controversial Confucius Institutes.
- Ng has also praised Beijing’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying that party officials took the “crucial first steps” to contain the virus, dismissing the possibility that the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
